LANE LEADS MER DE GLACE TO GLORY IN THE CAULFIELD CUP

Mer De Glace : Image courtesy Racing Photos

Mer De Glace became only the second Japanese horse to win the Stella Artois Caulfield Cup after holding off a wall of challengers to claim the world’s richest two-and-a-half mile handicap. Mer De Glace extended his winning streak to six races after a top-class staying performance under Australian jockey Damian Lane, who was instrumental in persuading trainer Hisashi Shimizu to take the five-year-old to Melbourne for the Victorian Spring Racing Carnival.

Vow and Declare, trained locally by Danny O’Brien, charged home to finish second with two European imports, Mirage Dancer and Constantinople, chasing the pair home in third and fourth place respectively. Mirage Dancer, formerly trained by Sir Michael Stoute but now in the care of Kiwi pair Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young, will progress to the Lexus Melbourne Cup on Tuesday, 5 November after an impressive debut on Australian soil.

He will be joined in ‘the race that stops a nation’ by Constantinople, who fell short of his bid to become the first northern hemisphere three-year-old to win the Caulfield Cup. However, the son of Galileo – who is now trained by the Lindsay Park team of David Hayes, his son Ben and nephew Tom Dabernig – has firmed into favouritism for the Melbourne Cup, with most bookmakers offering odds of 7/1 on the former Aidan O’Brien galloper.

Mer De Glace is currently the second favourite and, whilst connections have not yet committed to running him on the first Tuesday in November, if he recovers well it seems more likely than not that they will be heading to the Flemington showpiece.

The win secured a $3 million (approximately £1.58 million) payday for Shimizu and the Carrot Farm syndicate of owners, with Vow and Declare winning $700,000, Mirage Dancer taking home $350,000 and Constantinople $200,000.  

Speaking through a translator, Shimizu said: “It’s an amazing experience to be here and I’m so happy right now. “This win will be very big in Japan, everybody knows about the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival back home so I’m sure there will be a lot of very happy people there. One of my main goals was to win a Group 1 race internationally, they’re not easy to win. I’m so proud of this horse and also the jockey, he rode a great race so I’m very grateful to him.” Mer De Glace becomes the second Japanese horse to win the Caulfield Cup, after Admire Rakti broke through in 2014.

Of the other internationally-trained runners, Red Verdon finished eighth for trainer Ed Dunlop and jockey Pat Cosgrave, whilst the Ian Williams-trained Gold Mount endured a luckless passage when finishing 12^th. Earlier in the day, Cosgrave had piloted Saeed bin Suroor’s Royal Meeting to third place in the Group 3 Ladbrokes Moonga Stakes. The previously-unbeaten three-year-old colt had been off the track for almost a year after undergoing a wind operation, and ultimately a lack of fitness – and being forced to carry topweight of 60kg – told in the home straight.

Next Saturday (26 October) the Spring Racing Carnival moves to Moonee Valley Racing Club for the Ladbrokes Cox Plate, with Aidan O’Brien’s talented mare Magic Wand, her former stablemate Cape of Good Hope (now trained by Lindsay Park) and David Menuisier’s last-start Group 1 winner Danceteria all in contention to succeed Winx as Australasia’s weight-for-age champion.