RACING NEWS:PROFOUND BEAUTY is on the slide in ante-post betting for November's Melbourne Cup but the Dermot Weld team still aim to target Australia's most famous race with their high-class mare.
Before Saturday’s Irish Leger Profound Beauty was a 10 to 1 favourite in some lists for “the race that stops a nation” only to finish a distant fourth behind Alandi in the final Classic of the Irish season. She is now extended in betting in Australia to general odds of 16 to 1.
However, the plan for Profound Beauty to enter quarantine ahead of a trip down under remains unchanged. The Moyglare Stud-owned mare ran fifth in the 2008 Cup when ridden by Glen Boss.
“We are still going to put her in quarantine. She has come out of the Leger well and the plan remains Melbourne,” Weld’s son Kris said yesterday. “The ground was all against her on Saturday. She didn’t like it at all.”
Profound Beauty carried 51.5kgs in last year’s race but is set to carry 2kgs extra this time.
Weld also confirmed Famous Name will take his chance in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot later this month, while Casual Conquest has recovered from the mucus problem that prevented him running up to form in the Irish Champion Stakes.
“He was out in a field for a week after Leopardstown and is fine again now,” Weld added. “He is in the Canadian International and that could be a race for him.”
Aidan O’Brien’s Doncaster St Leger failure Changingoftheguard is also a Melbourne Cup entry but reports in Australia indicate the Ebor runner-up has been sold to continue his career down under with trainer David Hayes.
Saturday’s Group Two feature at Newbury, the Mill Reef Stakes, may be the next target for Tracey Collins’s unbeaten two-year-old Arctic. He features on a 14-strong entry for the six-furlong event. Also on the list is Richard Hannon’s unbeaten colt Dick Turpin, who landed a valuable sales race at Fairyhouse last month.
The third day of the Listowel Festival is an all-flat affair that features the €34,000 Premier Nursery over a mile. Just five line up but it has a 96-rated topweight in Famous Warrior and a Ballydoyle entry in Joshua Tree that showed an admirably good attitude at Gowran when winning on his debut on soft ground.
Aidan O’Brien endured a rare barren weekend both at home and abroad but Joshua Tree looks to have a reasonable chance in this prize, with the trainer’s son Joseph taking off a valuable 7lb.
The champion trainer has run some smart juveniles at Listowel over the years and the Sadler’s Wells newcomer Big Occasion is an interesting newcomer in the opener with Séamus Heffernan on board.
Johnny Murtagh will miss out on the whole week at Listowel in order to fully get over the effects of his fall at Dundalk last week. The season’s leading rider had physiotherapy on his back yesterday but his agent confirmed he will miss all of Listowel in order to recover properly. Testing ground conditions won’t be a problem for the bottomweight in the mile fillies handicap, Ufallya, and she can use the weight concession to add to earlier victories.
Sea The Stars on track for Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe
SEA THE STARS remains on track to try and complete a perfect six-from-six Group One season in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and bookmakers reckon it is short odds about the world’s top-rated horse bringing it off, writes Brian O’Connor.
John Oxx’s star performer is as low as a 5 to 4 shot to land the Arc after Sunday’s trial races at Longchamp failed to shake up the ante-post market.
The Prix Niel winner Cavalryman put up possible the best performance in scoring for Frankie Dettori but it doesn’t appear to have shaken Oxx’s confidence in Sea The Stars.
“There is nothing that looks more of a threat today than it did a week ago,” the Curragh trainer admitted yesterday.
“The Arc Trials are what they are – trial races. I wouldn’t read too much into them. They are like exercise gallops at times and the winners still have lots to find,” he added. “There was no outstanding performance that would make you think you’ve seen a horse that has made dramatic improvement over the summer.”
Ground conditions, however, remain central to Arc plans for Sea The Stars and should he have to miss Longchamp on October 4th, the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita would come on to the Oxx team’s radar.
“If we miss the Arc we’ll have a look at the two races that are left which are Newmarket (Champion Stakes) and Santa Anita. It would likely be the Classic rather then Turf,” Oxx said. “But the horse will tell us what to do. He has still to be in good form and giving us the right signals. It’s very late in the year for a horse that has had a Guineas run. But if he missed the Arc we would have to consider America,” he added.
PRIX DE L’ARC DE TRIOMPHE BETTING: (Paddy Power): 6-4 Sea The Stars, 4 Fame And Glory, 7 Conduit, 8 Stacelita and Cavalryman, 10 Vision D’Etat, 12 Sariska, 16 Beheshtam and Getaway, 20 others.
