It's Godolphin Again - Best Solution Toughs It Out in Caulfield Cup

Mark Smith - Saturday October 20

Following wins in the Group II Princess Of Wales's Stakes at Newmarket and a pair of Group 1 wins in Germany, Godolphin's Best Solution (IRE) carried his topweight to victory in Saturday's $5 million Group 1 Caulfield Cup to round out a wonderful seven days for trainer Saeed Bin Suroor and jockey Pat Cosgrave.

Last week the pair teamed up to win the Group 1 Caulfield Stakes (2000m) with Benbatl (IRE) (Dubawi).

It was a second win in the race for Bin Suroor after All The Good in 2008.


From a wide draw, Best Solution was slowly away and Cosgrove made plenty of use of the son of Kodiac to find a one out one back position behind the pacesetting Ace High.

After racing worse than midfield, Ben Melham set the Group 1 Underwood Stakes winner Homesman (USA) (War Front) to an all-out drive 700 metres out but Cosgrave was awake to the move and the pair singled out to stage an enthralling scrap.

Try as he might, Melham could not get Homesman's head in front and Best Solution (IRE) held on to win by a half-head with Aidan O'Brien's The Cliffsofmoher (IRE) (Galileo) one and a quarter lengths back in third with Andrew Balding's Duretto (GB) a hard-charging fourth. (photos Grant Courtney)

After winning two Group 1's in Germany to win another Group 1 in Australia is brilliant," Bin Surror said.

"I told Pat when the stalls open you need to be somewhere handy, third or fourth. He kicked early, which suited him really and he won well.

"It's been a great year. We have some very good horses. The Melbourne Cup is another big race, another dream for us, but we'll try"

Best Solution advances his record to 9 wins, 2 seconds and 3 thirds from 22 starts with earnings of $4,409,302.

A 32,000 guineas weanling and a 90,000 guineas Tattersalls yearling, Best Solution (IRE) is the lone winner from three to race out of the Kingmambo mare Al Andalyya who is a half-sister to Listed winner Kosmiche (Fastnet Rock), and to Cape Clear Island (Fastnet Rock} who was runner-up in the Group II G2 Prix Hocquart and Group III Sandown Classic Trial.

His stakes-placed granddam Kushnarenkovo (Sadler's Wells) is a sister to Group 1 winner Brian Boru and a half to Group II Herbert Power Stakes winner Sea Moon (Beat Hollow).

A Danehill half-brother to Invincible Spirit, Kodiac has risen from humble beginnings to be among Europe's premiant stallions.

After covering his third and fourth book of mares at Tally-Ho Stud at a fee of €4,000, the wonderfully versatile Kodiac stood for a fee of €50,000 this year

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