LEXINGTON, Ky. - The Tattersalls auction house in Newmarket, England, announced Tuesday that it will alter its fall sales schedule in 2003.
The company will move its boutique Houghton yearling sale one week earlier than currently scheduled, giving it a new place on Wednesday, Sept. 24, and Thursday, Sept. 25, in 2003.
Spartacus, the least fancied of four Aidan O'Brien-trained runners, scored a 16-1 surprise under apprentice Colm O'Donoghue in the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes at the Curragh in Ireland.
* Yavana's Pace a 10-year-old gelding, upset Salve Regina in the Group 1 Credit Suisse Private Banking Pokal at Cologne, Germany.
* At Deauville, France, May Ball caught Japanese invader Air Thule at the three-sixteenths pole to record a three-quarter-length victory in the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest.
The race intended to serve as a confidence boost for Sakhee instead did nothing except disappoint his connections and the public that made him the 1-5 favorite.
Facing an undistinguished field of older horses in Saturday's Group 3 Prix Gotaut-Biron at Deuville, France, on Saturday, Sakhee had to settle for second, a length behind Wellbeing.
The 5-year-old Sakhee, racing for the first time since finishing third in the Dubai World Cup in March, was expected to dominate the 1 1/4-mile race restricted to nonwinners of a Group 1 race this year.
Aidan O'Brien will saddle four colts in the six-furlong Phoenix Stakes, the first European Group 1 race of the season for 2-year-olds, at the Curragh on Sunday.
O'Brien has won this prestigious event each of the last four years - with Johannesburg, Minardi, Fasliyev, and Lavery. His hopes for a fifth consecutive victory in the $265,000 contest rest with Hold That Tiger, Ontario, Marino Marini, and Spartacus.
David Flores has been installed as the 8-1 co-second favorite for the Shergar Cup Jockey Challenge at Ascot on Saturday.
Named captain of the six-man Rest of the World Team in the six-race competition, Flores will attempt to improve on his 2001 Shergar Cup performance, when he rode two winners.
Sakhee has been supplemented at a cost $3,860 of to run at Deauville Saturday in the Group 3 Prix Gontaut-Biron, a 1-1/4-mile test for 4-year-olds & up which have not won a Group 1 race this year.
That such an accomplished horse as Sakhee would be running in what amounts to a "get-well" race indicates that Godolphin is playing catch-up with the 5-year-old son of Bahri in preparing him for a defense of his Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe title on Oct. 6.
Christophe Soumillon, one of France's leading riders, will bring his talents to Monmouth Park on Saturday when he will ride four horses for Patrick-Louis Biancone.
The 21-year-old Belgian-born rider burst onto the French scene with a winning ride aboard Anabaa Blue in last year's French Derby. The contract rider for the Aga Khan's powerful French stable, Soumillon was recently successful for the Aga aboard Khalkevi in the Grand Prix de Paris. Among his four mounts on Saturday will be Le Notre, co-owned by Biancone and Fabien Ouaki, in the Sapling Stakes.
Sakhee's slow-starting 5-year-old campaign took another detour on Wednesday when it was announced that Frankie Dettori will not be able to ride him at Deauville on Saturday due to a case of chicken pox.
Dettori picked up the disease from his children this week and will be replaced aboard Sakhee in the Group 3 Prix Gontaut-Biron by Richard Hills. The Italian rider said he was surprised that he fell ill because he had already had chicken pox as a child, but doctors told him that it was not impossible to get it again as an adult.
LONDON - Islington, eighth as the second favorite for the Epsom Oaks, came back to her best with an easy four-length win in the Group 1 Vodafone Nassau Stakes at Goodwood. Kieren Fallon sent her to the front inside the final quarter-mile and only had to push her clear. She was at least five lengths ahead inside the final furlong and her rider was able to relax close to home.
Banks Hill returns to the company of her own sex in the one-mile Group 2 Prix d'Astarte at Deauville on Sunday.
After her remarkable victory in the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf, Banks Hill was slated by Andre Fabre to run in all of the world's best 1 1/4-mile races this year. That plan hasn't quite worked out, as Banks Hill has finished just third in the Prix d'Ispahan and the Prince of Wales's Stakes.