Newgate daily racing briefWednesday 4 November 2026
Melbourne Cup day delivered a clean sweep for Ciaron Maher, with the lightly raced Frankel colt Point Of Law leading home the trifecta at Flemington. In Kentucky, the breeding stock season opened at full tilt, with Keeneland and Fasig-Tipton between them trading close to $200 million in two days. Elsewhere, a protest at Randwick cost one set of connections $1.41 million.
Point Of Law (Frankel) won the Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) at Flemington under Ethan Brown, overcoming his lack of race experience. The win completed a trifecta in the race for record-breaking trainer Ciaron Maher.
Pedigrees: Point Of Law
Keeneland's November Breeding Stock Sale opened on Tuesday with 152 horses sold for $95,929,000, an average of $631,112 (up 5.85 per cent on 2025) and a median of $400,000 (down 5.33 per cent). Forty-six horses were reported not sold for a buy-back rate of 23.23 per cent, against 24.22 per cent a year ago. Twenty-three horses, including four weanlings, made $1 million or more and eight reached $2 million or above. The session topper was the four-year-old Malibu Moon mare Quietside, in foal to Nyquist, sold by Stone Farm for $5.2 million to Erdenheim Farm Thoroughbreds.
Pedigrees: Quietside
Chad Schofield and Formal Display were first past the post in The Big Dance at Royal Randwick but were relegated to fourth after Nash Rawiller, fourth aboard Gringotts, lodged a successful protest. Stewards found Schofield had shifted out from the rail and impeded Gringotts between the 600m and 500m, with chief steward Tom Moxon satisfied Gringotts would otherwise have finished in advance of Formal Display. Hellsing was promoted to first and Matias to second, and Formal Display's connections collected $150,000 rather than $1.56 million. Schofield was also suspended for nine meetings for careless riding, having been banned six meetings for the same offence in the Golden Eagle.
Pedigrees: Formal Display, Gringotts, Hellsing, Matias
Victoria Racing Club figures show the 2025 Melbourne Cup generated a record $247.4 million in wagering turnover, up 16.4 per cent on 2024 and ahead of the previous benchmarks of $225.8 million in 2021 and $226 million in 2022. Turnover across the 10-race Flemington card reached $382.5 million, eclipsing the 2021 record of $375.6 million. The 2026 running was the first Melbourne Cup conducted under Tabcorp's One Pool, launched on 2 October, which merged the NSW TAB, SuperTAB and UniTAB totalisator pools into a single national pool so punters across the country bet into the same tote rather than receiving different dividends by state.
Champion two-year-old Puerto Rico has been retired from racing and will stand at Coolmore's Castlehyde Stud for the 2027 breeding season. No further detail, including a service fee, was available in the material to hand.
Pedigrees: Puerto Rico
Ways and Means, winner of Saturday's Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint, sold for $5 million to Boyd Racing, Brittany Linton agent, to top the Fasig-Tipton November sale. The five-year-old Practical Joke mare, a six-time graded stakes winner of $2,157,500 whose victories include the Test (G1) and this year's Ballerina (G1), was consigned as a racing-broodmare prospect by ELiTE for Klaravich Stable. The sale grossed $102,187,000 for 142 sold, including 33 seven-figure fillies and mares, two seven-figure weanlings and a lifetime breeding right to Breeders' Cup Classic winner Sovereignty. Amo Racing USA paid $4.2 million for Cy Fair, Katsumi Yoshida gave $3.2 million for Kathynmarissa and Spendthrift Farm secured Scottish Lassie for $3 million.
Pedigrees: Ways and Means, Sovereignty, Cy Fair, Kathynmarissa, Scottish Lassie
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