Trainer Aidan O'Brien returned to the Group 1 winner's circle on Tuesday as Fame and Glory won the 1 1/4-mile, $313,000 Criterium de Saint-Cloud for 2-year-olds.
It gave O'Brien his 23rd Group 1 victory in the final such race of the season in Europe.
The $320,000 Criterium de Saint-Cloud, France's annual exercise in asking 2-year-olds to go 1 1/4 miles on heavy ground, will be headed on Wednesday by Zafisio, the winner just 11 days ago of the one-mile Group 1 Criterium International.
An Efisio-Zafonic cross, Zafisio doesn't figure to stay 10 furlongs, so the winner is likely to come from among the more stoutly bred, improving types in this Group 1 contest.
With the month-long horsemen's strike in Italy having been resolved, Sunday's Group 1 Premio Roma at the Capannelle in Rome will proceed as scheduled. The $247,000 race, which has been won by a foreign-trained horse each of the last five years, includes just one foreign invader in the 3-year-old filly Nahoodh, who is trained in England by Mark Johnston.
Fernando Jara was shut out in five rides in his return to action at Nad Al Sheba on Thursday night. The man who rode Invasor to five Group or Grade 1 victories, including the 2007 Dubai World Cup, was making his debut as contract rider for Doug Watson in the UAE after having suffered a broken shoulder in a spill at Hollywood Park on Nov. 11, 2007.
Watson, the champion trainer in the UAE last season, did have one winner in the last of six races on the card in Lucky Ray, who took a 1 1/4-mile handicap on dirt under Irishman Daragh O'Donohue.
MELBOURNE, Australia They came from near and far for the 148th Melbourne Cup on Tuesday at Flemington Racecourse, but the race trophy stayed put when Australias legendary trainer Bart Cummings landed his record 12th Cup, as Viewed nosed out European invader Bauer in a thrilling end to the two-mile race.
The 2-year-old Zafisio reveled in the heavy ground at Saint-Cloud on Sunday, defeating fellow British invader Prince Siegfried in the $323,000 Criterium International by a head while traveling the mile in 1:46.10. Group 3 Prix Thomas Bryon winner Silver Frost was third, a half-length behind the runner-up.
Vodka outdueled Daiwa Scarlet in the $2.6 million Autumn Tenno Sho at Tokyo Racecourse on Sunday before a crowd of 121,961, beating her fellow 4-year-old filly by the slimmest of noses in a photo that took the stewards 20 minutes to decide.
Victory for the Katsuhiko Sumii-trained Vodka, who in 2007 became the first filly to win the Japanese Derby since 1943, also produced a track record of 1:57.20 for 1 1/4 miles. This year's Japanese Derby winner, Deep Sky, was just a neck farther behind in third and only a nose in front of fourth-place Company.
Septimus, the defending European champion stayer, should be good enough to handle his highweight impost of 129 pounds in Tuesday's two-mile Melbourne Cup Handicap at Flemington. The $3.8 million race has attracted so many European raiders that Australian trainer Bart Cummings, an 11-time winner of "the race that stops a nation," has called for a limit to be imposed on foreign participants.