Newgate weekly racing briefWeek ending Thursday 5 November 2026
Cup week dominated the reading list, headed by Point Of Law's win at Flemington and the record turnover figures that came with the first Melbourne Cup run under a single national tote pool. Off the track, Godolphin moved early on a retained rider and Keeneland's November opener posted a firmer average. Here are the six most-read stories of the week.
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, Frankel
Godolphin has appointed 20-year-old champion jockey Billy Loughnane as a retained rider, with chief operating officer Hugh Anderson describing him as the most exciting young jockey riding in Europe. Loughnane formally starts at the Dubai Carnival in December 2026, with William Buick continuing as the operation's other retained jockey. This year he won the 2,000 Guineas, St James's Palace Stakes and Sussex Stakes on Bow Echo and the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint on Libertango, having recorded his first Group 1 win on Godolphin's Rebel's Romance last year. Anderson said Godolphin had moved early in part to secure him before others could, and that the riding hierarchy would be settled as the seasons develop.
Pedigrees: Bow Echo, Libertango, Rebel's Romance
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
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.
Chris Waller has been fined $50,000 by Racing Victoria stewards after Penetrene, a topical anti-inflammatory and analgesic liniment, was applied to the forelegs of Asterix on Melbourne Cup morning. Acting on a report from RV's Compliance Assurance Team, stewards took evidence from Waller, stable staff, Tim George of the CAT team and regulatory vet Dr Edwina Wilkes, before Asterix was withdrawn at 10.33am. Waller pleaded guilty under Australian Racing Rule 227(a), with stewards accepting the application was made in error by a staff member and taking into account his guilty plea and record.
Pedigrees: Asterix
Noble Mission, the Group 1-winning full-brother to Frankel, will stand at Kirsten Rausing's Lanwades Stud in Newmarket in 2027 at a fee of £9,000, covering a strictly limited book of mares. The 17-year-old son of Galileo stood at Lane's End in Kentucky from 2015 before moving to the JBBA Shizunai Stallion Station in Hokkaido in 2021, and joins Sea The Moon and Study Of Man at the farm. His progeny include Code Of Honor, Nobals and Spanish Mission, and have won more than 810 races and over $36 million. The deal was brokered by John Tyrrell of BBA Ireland.
Pedigrees: Noble Mission, Frankel, Galileo, Sea The Moon, Study Of Man, Code Of Honor, Nobals, Spanish Mission
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