Update from Racing Post.....
Ellison bullish about Carte's Melbourne Cup prospects
by Lee Mottershead
BRIAN ELLISON on Tuesday declared that Carte Diamond, the British stayer who survived near-death experiences both before and after his aborted 2005 Melbourne Cup bid, will erase the memory of those troubled times by winning this year’s renewal of Australia’s greatest race.
Carte Diamond on Tuesday featured among a host of international entries for the feature races of the Spring Carnival, for which British trainers are represented to a greater degree than those of any other overseas country.
Carte Diamond, the 2005 Totesport Ebor runner-up, had been due to contest the Melbourne Cup last year, only to be ruled out days before the race after galloping through a running rail in a morning workout, in the process lacerating his hindquarters on a metal stake.
Kept in Australia to recover, the five-year-old suffered another major setback in February when a suspected heat-related problem caused him to experience severe breathlessness and to be put on a drip.
Carte Diamond, who is still at Melbourne’s Denistoun Park complex, was on Tuesday reported to be in excellent shape by a bullish Ellison.
“He’ll run in the Caulfield Cup, then he’ll run in the Melbourne Cup, and he’ll win the Melbourne Cup,” he said. “I think he’s a hell of a horse, and there’s no way he would have been out of the first three last year if he had been able to run. This year he’s bigger and stronger, although he did nearly die last year, so he’s still got to do it mentally.
“He’s had three or four gallops now and they’re very pleased with him over there. We’re going to run him in a mile-and-a- quarter race in September, and then we’ll decide if he needs another run before the Caulfield Cup. I’m going out there with my wife from September, and we won’t be back until after the Melbourne Cup, as there’s too much money at stake.”
Britain is responsible for 16 entries in the Emirates-sponsored Melbourne Cup, for which Aidan O’Brien has nominated Gold Cup winner Yeats, who has been declared for Wednesday’s Goodwood Cup.
Godolphin haveseven candidates, while 2004 Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Better Talk Now could become America’s first runner in the Flemington spectacular.
The Sir Michael Stoute-trained Maraahel
is among the European-trained entries for the Cox Plate.