Workforce will be favored over eight opponents in the Group 3 Brigadier Gerard Stakes on Thursday at Sandown, the 4-year-old’s first start since winning the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe last Oct. 3. Workforce, a winner in 3 of his 5 career starts, also captured the Epsom Derby last summer in England.

Gitano Hernando, considered a synthetic-track specialist, scored the best turf win of his career on Sunday, leading all the way to win the Group 1 Singapore Gold Cup by a half-length over the mare River Jetez.

New Zealand-bred So You Think has yet to face a worthy opponent in two starts since being imported to Ireland from Australia, but the manner in which he has won those two races, most recently the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup on Sunday at the Curragh, suggests So You Think can compete with any horse in Europe.

Bookmakers certainly think so: So You Think is listed as the early favorite for prestigious races such as the King George and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe after easily winning the Gold Cup by 4 1/2 lengths under Ryan Moore.

A new racing season showcased the same old Goldikova, who won her 2011 debut Sunday at Longchamp in Paris, taking the Prix d’Ispahan by a neck over Cirrus des Aigles. The 6-year-old Goldikova, perhaps the world’s best-known racehorse at this point, won the Ispahan for the second year in a row, and captured the 13^th Group 1 or Grade 1 race of her career.

Trainer Aidan O’Brien winning a Classic race is hardly news. That Joseph O’Brien, Aidan’s 17-year-old son, rode Roderic O’Connor to victory Saturday in the Irish 2000 Guineas came as more of a surprise. Roderic O’Connor gave Joseph O’Brien his first Classic victory, leading throughout the one-mile Guineas to prevail by three-quarters of a length over rallying Dubawi Gold.

American racing’s favorite foreigner, Goldikova, will make her 2011 debut Sunday at Lonchamp in Paris, where she faces eight foes in the Group 1 Prix d’Ispahan.

Though So You Think has made just one start since being imported from Australia, trainer Aidan O’Brien has suggested the horse may be one of the best – if not the best – he has ever trained. But exactly where in the upper echelon of the 2011 European hierarchy So You Think will fit might not be much clearer after Sunday’s Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh, since So You Think will have just four rivals, none of whom, on paper, should threaten him.

The middle-distance international circuit moves to Singapore on Sunday, with familiar foes Presvis, Wigmore Hall, and River Jetez part of an expected 13-horse field in the Group 1, $3 million Singapore Airlines International Cup.

The British Horseracing Authority has charged two owners, five jockeys, and six other individuals with conspiring to fix 10 races at British racecourses over a period of eight months in 2009, the authority said on Friday.

The charges all relate to efforts by the individuals to collect wagers on betting exchanges by ensuring that horses lost the races, the authority said. The 10 races took place at relatively minor racetracks in Great Britain.

Dubawi Gold will be favored Saturday at the Curragh in the Group 1 Irish 2000 Guineas in part because he exits a second-place finish to Frankel in the English 2000 Guineas, but also because the overall quality of his seven rivals appears to be subpar.