The World Thoroughbred Rankings Committee doesn’t think much of what transpired at Meydan on Dubai World Cup Night last week, preferring to award interim highweight honors for races between Oct. 1 and March 27 to the Australian sprinter Black Caviar.

The winner of three Group 1 sprints this winter, the Peter Moody-trained filly beat males in all three of those starts, taking the five-furlong Lightning Stakes by 3 1/4 lengths at Flemington on Feb. 19

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the six-furlong Newmarket Handicap by three lengths at the same track on March 12,

Reve d’Essor, the Japanese 2-year-old filly champion who would have started as the short-priced favroite for next Sunday’s Japanese 1000 Guineas, will be sidelined for at least six months after suffering a leg fracture during a workout in the past week.

Trained by Hiroyushi Moriyuki for Sunday Racing Co. Ltd., Reve d’Essor will undergo surgery at the Shadai Clinic on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, the center of the Japanese breeding industry.

St Nicholas Abbey, the 2009 European juvenile champion, makes his long-awaited return to the races at the Curragh on Sunday when he goes in the Alleged Stakes, a 1 1/4-mile listed contest valued at $56,700.

Absent since failing as the even-money favorite in the 2000 Guineas last May, when he finished a dull sixth behind Makfi, St Nicholas Abbey, a Montjeu colt, missed his hoped-for return in the Finale Stakes at the Curragh on Oct. 10, with trainer Aidan O’Brien preferring to put him away for the winter.

Two European-trained horses are under consideration for the Kentucky Derby – War Pact and Master of Hounds.

The Bronx-born Joseph Allen nominated War Pact, his Kentucky-bred son of War Front, to the Triple Crown on Wednesday. Two-for-three on Fibresand at Deauville and Cagnes-sur-Mer, War Pact is ineligible for the European classics because he is a gelding.

“He will run in the Prix de Suresnes at Maisons-Laffitte on April 18,” said his trainer, Jean-Claude Rouget, on Thursday. “After that we will make a decision about America.”

Ramon Dominguez has been handed a two-day suspension by stewards at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai for his ride on Gio Ponti in the $10 million Dubai World Cup. Dominguez will serve his days April 6-7, according to his agent, Steve Rushing.

The Japan Racing Association’s Aid for Tohoku-Kanto Earthquake program conducted between March 19 and 27 resulted in public donations of 44,735,867 yen ($542,735), the association reported Wednesday.

The racing association itself has added 100 million yen ($1,213,200) to the 1 billion yen ($12,320,000) already donated from the total handle at association tracks during that period. Along with other measures, JRA donations to the earthquake fund total 1,138,140,000 yen ($14,012,778).

Change comes slowly to British racing, but the start of the new turf flat season on Wednesday at Catterick brought two long-overdue innovations to the sport.

Japanese emotions ran high at Meydan on Saturday as Victoire Pisa and Transcend gave racing fans in the country so hard hit by a devastating earthquake this month something to cheer about with a one-two finish in the $10 million Dubai World Cup.

“I think this is a victory that can help put some life back into the people in Japan amid the darkness following the huge earthquake and tsunami,” said winning trainer Katsuhiko Sumii.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Long before he won the 2008 Japan Cup on Screen Hero or this past Saturday’s $10 million Dubai World Cup on Victoire Pisa, jockey Mirco Demuro spent part of the summer of 2001 riding at Del Mar, trying to achieve a career goal.

The first two Guineas preps at Leopardstown on Sunday proved to be rather inconclusive affairs as Dunboyne Express took a three-runner Group 3 Leopardstown 2000 Guineas Trial while Empowering and Wild Wind gave Aidan O’Brien a one-two finish in the Group 3 1000 Guineas Trial.