The four Group 1 stakes Sunday at Sha Tin on Hong Kong’s biggest day of racing will have to do without the best-known horse on the program as French invader Cirrus des Aigles has been withdrawn from the Hong Kong Cup after injuring a leg during training Thursday.
The November stakes winners Collector Item and Sound Rihanna are the leading contenders for Sunday’s Grade 1 Hanshin Juvenile Fillies in Japan, the nation’s top race for 2-year-old fillies.
Former British champion jockey Frankie Dettori has been suspended six months by French racing authorities after failing a drug test at Longchamp Racecourse in Paris in September.
Nihonpiro Ours, an 18-1 outsider, won the biggest race of his career, and first Grade 1, in Sunday’s $3.3 million Japan Cup Dirt at Hanshin Racecourse.
The purse of the Group 1 Prix Jean Romanet at Deauville, France, in August has been ordered redistributed after race winner Snow Fairy was disqualified for testing positive for a banned anti-inflammatory, according to French racing officials.
The 16 runners in Sunday’s $3.3 million Japan Cup Dirt at Hanshin Racecourse include Transcend and Wonder Acute, who were first and second in the 2011 running, and Espoir City, the winner of the 2009 Japan Cup Dirt and third last year.
Solemia, winner of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris in an upset last month, has been retired following her 13th place finish in Sunday’s Japan Cup at Tokyo Racecourse.
Gentildonna, the winner of the Japanese Triple Crown earlier this year, became the first 3-year-old filly to win the $6.5 million Japan Cup on Sunday.
The French filly Solemia and the Japanese colt Orfevre, first and second in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris on Oct. 7, meet again in Sunday’s $6.5 million Japan Cup at Toyko Racecourse.
Former champion jockey Frankie Dettori has been temporarily suspended for testing positive for a banned substance at Longchamp Racecourse on Sept. 16, according to a statement released Wednesday by France-Galop, the country’s regulatory body.
