With Australia gearing up for their annual feature - the Melbourne Cup, which takes place in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Flemington held host to some superb racing on Saturday.
Hugh Bowman - who rides Marmelo in the big one, was in the thick of the action, landing the Group 2 Tab Stakes for James Cummings aboard favourite Osborne Bulls. The Charlie Fellowes-trained Prince of Arran was also in action, landing the Lexus Stakes - a Group 3 Handicap over a mile-and-a-half.
Auteil had a double fixture list over the weekend, with action place on both Saturday and Sunday.
On Saturday, Galop Marin won the feature - the Grade 1 Grand Prix d'Automne, for Morgan Regairaz. He ran out an easy winner in the race, having been well supported in the market beforehand. Unchallenged, he bolted up by fifteen lengths.
There was more Grade 1 action on Sunday, with the Prix Cambaceres, the Prix la Haye Jousselin and the Prix Maurice Gillois. The latter was taken by the German trained Cicalina for Bertrand Lestrade, who overcame a bad mistake three fences from the finish to land the spoils.
Many international racing followers would agree that Champion Jockey Silvestre de Sousa's trip to Hong Kong, did not prove to be a worthwhile one.
He only managed to convert one ride from nine into a winning one, which was aboard Let Us Win in the Class 4 Maria Galland Handicap.
The most valuable race of the day was the Eleanor Handicap, which was won by Dragon General and Chad Schofield. Raging Storm and SDS could only manage fifth.
There were plenty of British raiders amongst the big races at Capannelle, Italy on Sunday. Masham Star, who has had such a long season for Mark Johnston, claimed a handsome victory in the Group 3 Premio Ribot Memorial Loreto Luciani.
Luca Cumani was given one more chance to land a Grade 1 before bringing the curtain down on his illustrious training career, and it was almost as though God Given - ridden by Jason Watson, had read the script. God Given, a daughter of Nathaniel - who won the Park Hill Stakes at Doncaster last month, landed another big race success here for a trainer who has savoured so much prosperity over the years.
