Melbourne Cup: Scorpion and Mahler touched down in Australia in the early hours of yesterday morning after a gruelling 30-hour journey ahead of the Melbourne Cup in two weeks' time.
Aidan O'Brien's five-strong Breeders' Cup team are expected to arrive in Monmouth Park, New Jersey, today but the champion trainer's international challenge is already under way down under where Mahler especially will be attempting a little bit of history in "the race that stops a nation".
The St Leger runner-up will be the first European three-year-old to contest the $5 million Flemington feature even though on Southern Hemisphere breeding time he is regarded as a four-year-old.
Both Mahler and Scorpion landed in Melbourne after their lengthy flight and are in quarantine at the Sandown racetrack facility on the outskirts of the Victorian capital.
Michael Kinane will return again to the scene of his historic triumph on Vintage Crop in 1993 when he teams up with Scorpion while local rider Stephen Baster will ride Mahler who has been given the equivalent of 7st 12lb in the Cup.
Already the Irish pair have drawn attention Down Under and the local trainer, Danny O'Brien, who has the Caulfield Cup winner Master O'Reilly, told the Herald Sun: "They are the ones to watch. They are quality horses."
In local TAB betting in Melbourne, Scorpion is rated a 10 to 1 shot while Mahler is currently a 16 to 1 shot. Luca Cumani's Ebor winner Purple Moon, sixth in last weekend's Caulfield Cup, has rocketed to the top of ante-post betting on the back of that race.
"He has come out of that race well. He encountered trouble all the way round but when he got clear he absolutely flew home which was a good indication he's got the turn of foot needed. Hopefully it was a good trial," said Cumani's daughter, Francesca, yesterday.
Kinane's dash back from Canada for the Curragh's last meeting of the year paid off immediately as the heavily-backed favourite, Age Of Chivalry, won the opening two-year-old race at headquarters yesterday.
The penalised filly didn't have to come under maximum pressure to beat La Sylvia by a length and a half in a performance that impressed trainer John Oxx.
"She's a nice filly over five and six furlongs and some cut in the ground suits her. Hopefully she'll be able to run in good company and in Listed races next year," he said.
Oxx and Kinane were also fancied to do well in the seven-furlong juvenile maiden but Arizona John had to settle for third behind Teacht An Earraig whose connections, Jim Bolger and Kevin Manning, doubled up in the mile maiden with another daughter of Galileo, Kitty Hawk Miss.
It was a day to remember for Lancashire-born apprentice John McGuinness who rode his first winner on the Harry Rogers-trained veteran Kilmannin in the apprentice handicap.
Dermot Weld's Breeders' Cup focus will be on Domestic Fund's attempt on Friday night's $1 million juvenile turf race at Monmouth but he will also have an eye on Fairyhouse today where Strath Gallant has his second start over jumps in the two and a quarter mile maiden hurdle. The first of them, at Wexford last winter, wasn't overly exciting and maybe the bumper performer Ah Ya Boy Ya, in the colours of businessman Dermot Desmond, may be a better option. Ah Ya Boy Ya's trainer can also be successful in the Beginners Chase where the highly-regarded Clarkey can make a winning debut over fences.
