O'brien Quest Likely To Put World Spotlight On Carnival

The Age

Monday August 4, 2008

Andrew Eddy

MELBOURNE'S spring carnival could hold the international spotlight as never before, with the expectation that champion Irish trainer Aidan O'Brien will send a strong team of horses to Australia in a bid to break the world record for group 1 victories in a season.

Last night, Racing Victoria Ltd officials were anxiously awaiting O'Brien's entries for the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups and Cox Plate before tomorrow's noon deadline, but O'Brien has indicated he will also aim several members of his elite team at other group 1 races in Melbourne over the carnival.

RVL racing operations manager Leigh Jordon said O'Brien had told him on a recent visit to the trainer's Ballydoyle stables that he wanted to bring horses to Melbourne to contest group 1 races such as the Emirates Stakes, Age Classic and Mackinnon Stakes over the Flemington carnival.

O'Brien won his 17th group 1 race for 2008 over the weekend when Halfway To Heaven took the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood. English bookmaker William Hill now has now O'Brien at odds-on to overhaul US trainer Bobby Frankel's world record of 25 group 1 wins before the end of the year.

Several group 1 races are still to be run in England, France and Germany this year, as well as in North America, Japan and Hong Kong, but Melbourne's spring carnival is likely to prove the key in O'Brien's quest for the world record.

His best season to date was in 2001 when he trained 21 group 1 winners.

O'Brien, who saddled up Mahler into third place in last year's Melbourne Cup, is expected to enter his renowned stayer Yeats for a second tilt at the cup, as well as the highly rated Sadler's Wells entire Septimus. And there could be others as well.

Jordon said that Newmarket-based trainer Luca Cumani, who trained last year's Melbourne Cup runner-up Purple Moon, had entered Bauer, Mad Rush, Lady's Best, Sanbach and Speed Gifted for the cups.

Two-time Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Dermot Weld now has three cups entries, having added the names of Consulate and Ghimaar to Profound Beauty, who was entered last week.

Jordon said Godolphin was again likely to send a sizeable team, and that one of Europe's emerging stayers, Patkai, from Michael Stoute's yard, would also be entered.

English trainer Jeremy Noseda, who clashed over the Royal Ascot carnival with Caulfield trainer Peter Moody over expenses being paid to Australian visitors, is looking to take up the challenge, issued by Moody, of coming to Australia to race.

In response to Noseda's comments, Moody said: "I'd love to see one of these blokes get off their own dunghill and come down to Australia to compete with us."

Noseda has entered Sixties Icon, Milne Garden and Minkowski for the cups.

The class South African galloper Jay Peg, one of the early international fancies for the Cox Plate, will not be entered as he has a leg injury.

The 2006 Melbourne Cup third-placegetter Maybe Better is expected to start his comeback campaign today when he trials over 1000 metres at the Geelong Thoroughtrack.

Maybe Better has not raced since last spring. He was scratched hours before the Melbourne Cup after trainer Brian Mayfield-Smith noticed he had an enlarged vein in a leg.

© 2008 The Age

Back to News Index | Back to Home