Australia Retired.

yes, after last run I feared the worse,They took their time revealing the expected.

It's been apparent ever since his demolition of Free Eagle last season. The hype on this horses was ratcheted up a notch even by their standards. High quality horses and potentially his best ever but sadly we'll never see it.

yes sintonian,the key problem was the horse himself,a very good horse,but did take a while to warm to the task,and did seem to idol a little when hitting the front,I think this made the owners feel exposed and they may have possibly feared being beaten? I will never know.

it is because he is so impeccably bred, MJ. Just like Galileo was on both sides. The breeding manager has already said this morning they are getting calls with requests to see mares whilst he was still in racing.

The markets on here knew there was something up, been drifting for both Champ Stks & QEII.
Prob with the horses foot & heel .
Thats the reason put forward anyway
He was a gd horse Oz, but no superstar.

That niggling heel problem seemed to be exacerbated with every drop of rain that fell at Ascot.

perhaps the most expected career-ending injury in history

Afraid of getting beat at Ascot so they make an excuse to retire him - hardly unexpected. And of course they will be praying Free Eagle wins the Champion so they can use his 6L beating of said horse that in their marketing hype.

Unfortunate from a punting point of view as I would've strongly opposed him in whichever race they might've picked for him and the value in the market will be much thinner without him. It seems his connections were as confident about him regaining the winning thread next time as I was about backing him. I don't have any problem with them retiring him, though, as it must make business sense, if the breeders are satisfied with what he did on the track then that market must be exploited. As to the hype, it shouldn't make any difference to a punter/racing fan's perspective, in my view he was just a decent Derby winner, no more no less.

I wonder what their views will be going into next season regarding their no.1 jockey. JOB costly for them now. He is not really an asset.

I think it's like anything, sint, some complacency sets in with a lack of formidable opposition. If Godolphin hadn't been mismanaged for years and were getting a return their investment deserved I have no doubts at all that Coolmore would've employed an alternative jockey.

F it was about a year ago I elected to be AOB's alter ego and follow Australia closely through his career trying to think as he would be thinking. It has been difficult almost impossible trying to second guess him and although I got it right in the 2000 Gns I got it massively wrong in the Irish Derby and the Arc. It has been trying but fun in mixed amounts reaction but I am sad to see Australia retire. It really does show how little care the operation has for what the betting public think.
The most important point you made was to try to diferentiate between hype and ability and to use it to your punting benefit. Isuppose the reason many punters loathe the hype is because they have been caught up in it and it has cost them pocket wise.
As a racing fan we have another racehorse going to stud with his true ability not known, that is sad and in my opinion adds to the statistics. Could he have been rated higher? I think so but Coolmore obviously have calculated the risk of finding out is not worth the loss of revenue. Perhaps the horses still runing for his form lines will give us an answer.

JOB was just interviewed on RUK where he said Australia was a) lame for a few days and b) missed a couple of days work. Firstly that does not add up and secondly the markets should have been notified when he was lame for ONE day not a few days because they would have know he had foot problem and his participation would have certainly been compromised with so few days to go.
In reality I find this comment, if accurate, to be untrue because when a horse is lame for a FEW DAYS he will miss much more than a couple of days work.
Very unstaisfactory and Lydia's lack of knowledge was exposed unless she did not want to ask the question.

Cheers brigust,it's good for some experienced input,I would not have a clue what kind of injury makes the difference in recovery.

Channel 4 covered his retirement and you can offer all the cynicism you want but the horse was not in a position to do himself justice at Ascot and he has been retired which was always going to be the case at the end of the season.

Once again it is a case seeing things how they are and not how you want them to be. Coolmore is a multi-million dollar breeding business and forever it will be so.

Juddmonte Farms are no different but because Prince Khaled is old and frail and rarely speaks he doesn`t get the flak that Coolmore do.

If it`s not Frankel or Australia or Kingman or any other equine superstar that causes so much debate suffice to say a similar discussion will be available towards the end of next season and that is the beauty of thoroughbred horseracing which reinvents itself year after year after year.