Foreign champs heading to U.S.

Champions from Australia and Venezuela will soon be calling America home. Scenic Blast, the 2008-09 Horse of the Year in his native Australia, is joining John Shirreffs at Hollywood Park, while Venezuelan champion filly Bambera joins Pablo Andrade at Calder.

The winner of the five-furlong, Group 1 King's Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot in June, Scenic Blast had previously been trained by Danny Morton to a pair of Group 1 sprint victories, the five-furlong Lightning Stakes and the six-furlong Newmarket Stakes, both at Melbourne's leading racecourse Flemington. A 5-year-old son the Sadler's Wells stallion Scenic, he has won 8 of 21 career starts for owner Elio Galante.

Scenic Blast finished last in his two most recent starts, the Sprinters Stakes at Nakayama and the Hong Kong Sprint at Sha Tin. He bled in both races and is coming to America to take advantage of U.S. medication rules.

Bambera is Venezuela's version of Rachel Alexandra. By the Sadler's Wells stallion and Venezuela's perennially leading sire Water Poet, the 3-year-old filly has won 16 of 18 starts for trainer Gustavo Delgado, among them 10 Grade 1's between seven furlongs and 1 1/2 miles in Venezuela, including the Venezuelan fillies triple crown and two-thirds of the triple crown against colts. In her most recent start on Dec. 6, she beat older colts for the fifth time when taking the Grade 1 Clasico del Caribe, the 1 1/8-mile centerpiece of Puerto Rico's Caribbean Nations Confederation Festival, defeating Mexican filly triple crown winner Vivian Record by 4 1/2 lengths.