Australia’s International Wish List

[Wandering Eyes]

The Melbourne Cup itself has been garnering plenty of publicity over the last few weeks as the famed trophy stops off at various yards connected to past and potential runners in Britain and Ireland. Following its path is Paul Bloodworth, who earlier this year added a global element to his previous role as racing operations manager for Racing Victoria.

Bloodworth succeeds Leigh Jordon–who is now the Victoria Racing Club’s racing manager at Flemington-in the role of international recruiting officer and it is one which he concedes has been made easier over time with the growing popularity worldwide of Australia’s most famous race.

“It’s great to come over and to talk to the trainers involved,” said Bloodworth during Newmarket’s July meeting before heading on to Ireland to visit Dermot Weld, Willie Mullins and Joseph O’Brien. “The work that Leigh has done, along with the Croc [Jim McGrath] and their predecessors has made the job reasonably easy. Everyone in the racing world now knows about the Melbourne Cup and trainers now will win a race over here and say almost straight away that they’re going to Melbourne. I think the key is that trainers are realising that they can’t have a really long season and target the Cup as an afterthought. They are planning the whole year around peaking on that day and that might mean not running in some of the big summer races in Europe.”

It’s hard to disagree with his assessment. Ever since the historic win of Dr Michael Smurfit’s Vintage Crop (GB) (Rousillon) in 1993, a growing army of international raiders has descended on Melbourne, along with an accompanying number of European-bred horses who are permanently imported to Australia in pursuit of the country’s lucrative Cups programme.

In the intervening years, the Melbourne Cup, which this year has increased prizemoney of A$7.3-million and a new sponsor in Lexus, has been won by Irish-trained horses on another two occasions, while France can also claim two Melbourne Cup winners and Germany and Japan have one apiece. It is likely to be only a matter of time before a British-trained runner is successful–Ed Dunlop and Luca Cumani have both lost out by mere pixels with Red Cadeaux (GB) and Bauer (GB) respectively–and this year’s shuttle from the Newmarket quarantine centre looks set to have few spare places.

“We saw Hughie Morrison. He’s coming back with Marmelo (GB) and will only run in the Melbourne Cup this year as he felt like Marmelo ran his race in the Caulfield Cup last year,” said Bloodworth. “Roger Charlton is bringing Withhold (GB), who is an exciting horse. The team around him is very confident about him and his win in the Northumberland Plate means that he’s passed the ballot, which is the first step, but because he hasn’t won a group race his weight is quite low. They don’t want to run him again but the weight he has now would have got him into seven of the last 10 Melbourne Cups so there’s a decent chance.”

Only 24 runners can line up for the Melbourne Cup meaning that the balance between making the cut and ensuring a horse isn’t lumping a heavy weight throughout the two miles is a delicate one. The drama continues right up to VRC Derby day, just three days beforehand, when the winner of that Saturday’s G3 Lexus S. is granted an automatic Cup berth.

Newmarket trainer and TDN columnist Charlie Fellowes is hoping to be represented by his first runner in Australia, the globetrotting Prince Of Arran (GB) (Shirocco {Ger}), and he can draw extra encouragement from the fact that the 5-year-old’s paternal grandsire Monsun (Ger) has already provided three recent winners of the race in Fiorente (Ire), Protectionist (Ger) and Almandin (Ger). Prince Of Arran is likely to be allotted the same mark as Withhold when the weights are announced officially on Aug. 28 by chief handicapper Greg Carpenter, but will attempt to improve his chances of making the final 24 by having a prep race in Australia before the first Tuesday of November.

Other potential travellers from the UK include the Ian Williams-trained Magic Circle (Ire) (Makfi {GB}) and Red Verdon (Lemon Drop Kid), owned by Ronald Arculli whose Red Cadeaux (GB) (Cadeaux Genereux {GB}) became a Flemington darling for his five consecutive appearances in the race. They could also be joined by G3 John Smith’s Silver Cup winner Dylan Mouth (Ire) (Dylan Thomas {Ire}) for Melbourne regular Marco Botti.

Continuing his ‘hit list’, Bloodworth pointed to Godolphin, which has routinely supported the Cup over many years with its Northern Hemisphere team and has come close to glory, with second-place finishes for the Saeed Bin Suroor-trained Crime Scene (Ire) (Royal Applause {GB}) and Give The Slip (GB) (Slip Anchor {GB}) in 2009 and 2001.

“Charlie Appleby could have four to six horses to come down,” he said. “Saeed Bin Suroor, who is bringing Benbatl (GB) for the Cox Plate, also has Best Solution (Ire). He’s just won the Princess Of Wales’s S. which is a ballot-exempt race for the Caulfield Cup, but when we went to talk to Saeed all he wanted to talk about was the Melbourne Cup. I get the sense that Sheikh Mohammed is still really keen to win the race.”

The team at Racing Victoria is hoping that Lloyd Williams and Joseph O’Brien, who struck last year with Rekindling (GB) (High Chaparral {Ire}), will be tempted to follow the same path with Irish Derby winner Latrobe (Ire) (Camelot {GB}).

“I don’t know if Latrobe will come–perhaps after he runs in the St Leger like Rekindling did last year,” Bloodworth said. “The other horse we’d love to come from Ireland is Torcedor (Ire) who is owned by [New Zealand-based] Te Akau. Laurie Laxon is also involved in the ownership and he’s already trained a Melbourne Cup winner so that would be a great story.”

Of course Melbourne in the Australian springtime isn’t just about the Melbourne Cup. Among the Spring Carnival highlights are the G1 Ladbrokes Cox Plate and G1 BMW Caulfield Cup, both of which have had significant prize-money boosts to A$5-million this year.

“The Cox Plate hadn’t had an increase since 2000,” Bloodworth noted. “It was A$3-million back then which was amazing but it had just dropped a bit at that international level.”

The Caulfield Cup also carries with it a A$100,000 incentive for any international runner to line up for the mile-and-a-half contest, which in the last 20 years has seen winners from Britain, France and Japan. With 11 of the 23 starters for last year’s Melbourne Cup trained outside Australasia–a not uncommon feature of the race in recent years–concerns have been raised that the famed ‘Aussie battler’ is becoming an endangered species in the country’s iconic race.

“The Cups are both handicaps so your performance gets you in and there’s a lot of time, effort and money involved in getting a horse to the other side of the world,” Bloodworth said. “The Melbourne Racing Club now offers a $100,000 incentive for an international to run in the Caulfield Cup, which is really important and you get prizemoney on top of that. If you just come to the Melbourne Cup there’s no incentive offered. We don’t think it will ever get too top heavy. Last year nine of the first 11 across the line were internationals but we’re not producing stayers like we once were and perhaps the influx will encourage breeders to do so. But it goes both ways and Australia has had some good sprinters compete internationally.”

He added, “We don’t travel so much now because our prizemoney is so good in Australia but if you want to go to Dubai or Hong Kong you are welcomed with open arms and we want to make sure we do the same for our visitors.”

 

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