Frontieres team still favouring Melbourne Cup option

Despite the unpleasant surprise of being raised 2kgs in the weights for the 150th Emirates Melbourne Cup after having won the Group 1 Irish Field St Leger at the Curragh earlier this month, connections of the highly progressive Sans Frontieres are still leaning towards a crack at Australia’s biggest horse race ahead of other high profile international events.

The Jeremy Noseda-trained son of Galileo could take in alternative engagements in the Canadian International at Woodbine, the Japan Cup, or even the Breeders’ Cup Turf, but the two miles of the Flemington spectacle seem ideally suited to the style of running of Sir Robert Ogden’s colt, so despite their disappointment at the retrospective rise in his handicap mark, Ogden’s racing manager Barry Simpson has given a strong hint that plans are still being made for Sans Frontieres to head ‘Down Under’.

Prior to his impressive win in Ireland when readily accounting for another leading Melbourne Cup hope Profound Beauty, Sans Frontieres had cosily beaten Redwood in the Group 2 Princess of Wales’s Stakes at Newmarket’s July meeting, form that received a massive boost on Sunday when Barry Hills’s colt emerged triumphant after landing the Northern Dancer Turf, a Grade 1 affair at Woodbine in Canada.  The four-year-old then went on to beat Laheeb in the Group 3 Geoffrey Freer Stakes at Newbury, form that has also been seriously franked by the runner-up’s subsequent victory in the Group 3 September Stakes at Kempton a couple of weeks ago.

Currently priced up by British firms in the Melbourne Cup betting markets at 14/1 joint second favourite with recent Caulfield winner So You Think, behind last year’s winner and 10/1 ante-post favourite Shocking, Sans Frontieres has a not dissimilar profile to Dermot Weld’s famous first Melbourne Cup winner Vintage Crop and could give Newmarket plenty to cheer about on November 2nd. Make sure you bear all that in mind when thinking about your Melbourne Cup tips!