CHELTENHAM, England - Johannesburg, the Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner and champion 2-year-old colt of 2001, worked Tuesday and remains on schedule for an attempt at the Kentucky Derby on May 4, trainer Aidan O'Brien said.
Speaking from the National Hunt Festival, O'Brien said that Johannesburg worked five furlongs in 56 seconds in Ireland and that he was not surprised by the quick time.
"His works are always fast," O'Brien said. "So far, so good."
Tempera makes her much anticipated 3-year-old debut at Nad Al Sheba on Thursday night in the $250,000 UAE 1000 Guineas, a one-mile dirt race in which she will face five seemingly outclassed opponents.
The American champion 2-year-old filly by virtue of her impressive victory in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, will face Seba, another Godolphin runner, who finished nine lengths behind Imperial Gesture in the Moonshell Mile on Feb. 24.
Sagacity failed in his Dubai Sheema Classic prep at Saint-Cloud Saturday as he was beaten a length by Jomana in the Group 3 Prix Exbury.
But the defeat of Sagacity, third in last year's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, has not dissuaded trainer Andre Fabre from his plan of sending him to Dubai. Sagacity was not given a hard time in the Exbury which, at 1 1/4 miles, is two furlongs short of his best distance.
The Cheltenham Festival, the world championship for steeplechasers, starts on Tuesday in the small English market town of the same name, 100 miles west of London.
For die-hard followers of the winter sport, and this year for a few Americans, the three-day meeting cannot arrive too soon.
First postponed and then canceled last year because of foot and mouth disease, the Festival is considered the year's best jump racing.
NEW YORK - With all of the hullabaloo surrounding the juvenile prospects of Godolphin in England and Aidan O'Brien in Ireland, French 2-year-olds tend to get lost in the shuffle.
The International Classification certainly didn't think very highly of Gallic juvenile form last year. Act One was International Classification's highest rated French-trained 2-year-old, but his 117 rating was nine pounds below that of European champion Johannesburg.
Fourteen horses from the United States have accepted invitations from the Emirates Racing Association to run on the seven-race, $15.25 million Dubai World Cup card at Nad Al Sheba on March 23, but only one of them, Western Pride, is entered in the big race.
Two teenage boys were injured by an explosion at the Farmacaffey point-to-point race meeting in south Armagh, Northern Ireland, on Saturday, it was reported on the Racing Post website. The boys, aged 15 and 16, received shrapnel wounds when a traffic cone exploded. Conor Murphy, a Sinn Fein representative in the Northern Ireland Assembly, laid the blame at the feet of a dissident republican paramilitary group. The boys' injuries were described as non-life-threatening.
Blast of Storm, an Irish-bred who is based in Barbados, outdueled North American invader Warleigh to become the first horse to capture three consecutive runnings of the $100,000 (U.S.) Sandy Lane Barbados Gold Cup.
An enthusiastic of more than 12,000 was on hand at Garrison Savannah Racetrack for the Gold Cup, which is one of the highlights of the Barbadian racing calendar.
MELBOURNE, Australia - Australia's leading weight-for-age performer Northerly showed Saturday he's ready to defend his Australian Cup title with a come-from-behind victory in the Group 2 St. George Stakes over 1,800 meters at Caulfield racecourse.
Northerly appeared to face a mountain of a task early in the weight-for-age St. George Stakes when he was uncharacteristically far back along the rail. But at the top of the stretch, the leader, Dinmont, rolled away from the fence and presented clear sailing for Northerly, the 7-10 favorite.