The drain on racehorses out of Crown Lodge heading to Europe "could be a thing of the past as Godolphin plans to send more horses like Contributer and Hartnell to Australia, which has become a focus for the global operation," according to Chris Roots of the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD.
Sheikh Mohammed's bloodstock advisor John Ferguson "made the trip to Australia for the Golden Slipper only a week from Godolphin's biggest event of the year, the Dubai World Cup." Godolphin has "so far sent three Europeans to John O'Shea since rebranding the stable at the start of the season." All have won and Hartnell will attempt to become the second group 1 winner in the BMW at Rosehill on Saturday. The trend "had previously been for horses from Australia to head to Europe to bolster the Godolphin team there," but Ferguson made it clear "it would take a special horse to be sent north in the future. Ferguson:
"In my opinion racing in Australia is so healthy you have to think very hard before moving horses. Now that Godolphin is here and it is a Godolphin team, we want it to be successfully in Australia. At the end of the day Sheikh Mohammed is really interested in Australian racing and Australia generally" (SMH, 3/22).
COBALT CONTROVERSY: In Melbourne, Patrick Bartley reported Australian horses "have been excluded from some of the most exhaustive and comprehensive international tests on the misuse of the outlawed cobalt chloride."
Analysts "collectively agreed to not include Australian horses as they feared that it would skew the results after the discovery of the use of cobalt chloride in at least three states of Australia." Horses from Australia "were an unacceptable risk for the tests and analysts were concerned that cobalt abuse in this country could significantly bias the findings" (THE AGE, 3/22).
