Australian Bloodstock

British-based Quantum Leap Racing has teamed up with Australian Bloodstock in the 4-year-old Rodrigo Diaz (GB) (Golden Horn {GB}) with the aim of sending the 96-rated stayer to the Melbourne Cup. The winner of four of his 10 starts for David Simcock, Rodrigo Diaz was a 55,000gns Tattersalls December Yearling Sale purchase by Jeremy Brummitt, an agent with a good track record in buying European yearlings for the Australian market. The gelding will now race in a 50-50 partnership between the two syndicates.  Quantum Leap Racing, which was established by...

SARATOGA SPRINGS N.Y.--While Tapit ran the ring during Monday's session with the two top-priced yearlings, it was Curlin day at Fasig-Tipton's Saratoga Selected Yearlings Sale Tuesday with a trio of colts by the Hill 'n' Dale stallion reaching seven figures. Hips 174 and 153 topped the session and the sale at $1.5 million and Hip 159 tied Monday's Tapit topper, Hip 80, at a cool $1 million. "It's really pretty simple: quality sells," said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning. "We had a remarkable group of horses on offer tonight and the...

It is a sign of the times that one of the success stories of the racing summer involves a French trainer based in England, winning his first Group 1 race in Germany for a horse owned by a group of Australians. Step forward David Menuisier, a graduate of such centres of racing excellence as the training yards of Richard Mandella, Criquette Head and John Dunlop now making a name for himself from his adopted West Sussex home of Coombelands. This was the place from which Guy Harwood honed the prodigious...