Two times Melbourne Cup winner Dermot Weld has hired one of Australia’s most talented jockeys to ride his Melbourne Cup entry, Profound Beauty, next month.

Glen Boss will be in Profound Beauty’s saddle when Weld sets out to add a third Melbourne Cup title to his 1993 and 2002 Melbourne Cup wins. Boss is best known for riding Makybe Diva to three consecutive Melbourne Cup victories from 2003 to 2005.

Weld made his announcement after Profound Beauty showed no further signs of discomfort from the foot injury that had threatened her Melbourne Cup campaign this weekend.

“Glen was on top of our list, but we just wanted to get the problem out of the way before making it certain,” a spokesman for Weld’s stable told reporters on Monday.

Meanwhile reports from Aidan O’Brien’s camp indicate that the preparations of Melbourne Cup favourite Septimus are going according to plan.

“You’ll start seeing him work into form from now on,” assistant trainer Andrew Murphy told reporters. “He’ll be having a stronger piece of work on Friday and then on Monday he’ll do some more again. What you’ll see on race day is a horse with more speed than Yeats, a lot more speed.”

All The Good staked his claim as a serious Melbourne Cup contender on Saturday by winning the 2008 Caulfield Cup.

British trained All The Good, running for the Godolphin stable, finished the $2.5 million race ahead of Australian Derby winner Nom Du Jeu. Barbaricus finished in 3rd place while Luca Cumani’s Mad Rush finished the Caulfield Cup 4th, securing a place in the Melbourne Cup.

“I got caught three deep but I had cover the whole way and for an English horse he travelled really well and picked up nicely there when we turned for home,” Kerrin McEvoy, All The Good’s rider, said after the race. “It’s such a huge buzz I’m so excited, especially to wear these blue colours.”

While All The Good’s win at Caulfield was promptly rewarded with a 2kg penalty by the Melbourne Cup handicapper, Godolphin’s racing manager Simon Crisford is more concerned about the short break between the Melbourne Cup and Caulfield Cup.

“We would rather the Melbourne Cup is another two weeks later than it is because he is best when he is really fresh this horse,” Crisford told a Melbourne based radio station. “It was such a big effort, he was going to be a bit poky after the race especially after all the travelling because it has been quite an ordeal for him.”

“But he is a really seasoned galloper and he has had plenty of racing. He hasn’t done much travelling in his life but he is a professional and hopefully he will bounce back quickly and back into top gear and get ready for the Cup.”

The participation of Profound Beauty in the 2008 Melbourne Cup hangs in the balance following an injury during training on Tuesday.

The mare, trainer Dermot Weld’s only Melbourne Cup entry, bruised the sole of her foot during training, and was restricted to a session at walking pace on Friday morning. According to stable employee David Phillips, Profound Beauty has shown modest improvement since sustaining the injury.

“There’s been steady progress, it just has to run its course,” Phillips told reporters. “We’re nearly there, we just need to get there. We can’t press on unless we’re happy she’s OK.”

The next 24 hours will be critical in determining whether Profound Beauty will run in the Melbourne Cup, with any aggravation of the injury likely to end Weld’s hopes of fielding his mare in the race on the 4th of November.

“The goal tomorrow is to get her out onto the track and we’ll be happy to give her a nice steady canter,” Phillips said. “We’ll see how she pulls up after that. If we improve in the next 24 hours we’ll be very happy. The gamble is going to be doing the canter tomorrow.”

Davis Hayes’ Melbourne Cup hopeful, Kibbutz, has been pulled out of this weekend’s Caufield Cup after failing to recover from a foot injury.

Kibbutz, who was one of three Hayes entries preparing for the Melbourne Cup at Caufield, suffered a burst abscess in his foot earlier this week. He will be replaced by Danny O’Brien’s Barbaricus in the Melbourne Cup, giving O’Brien three entries in the race.

“It’s not the end of the world,” Hayes said after releasing the news of his horse’s injury to the press. “We have really got the Melbourne Cup in mind for him.”

Hayes will now rely on his two other Caufield Cup entries, Guillotine and Zagreb, to make an impact on the race.

Kibbutz, meanwhile, is likely to be out of action until just before the Melbourne Cup, when he is expected to run in the McKinnon Stakes, a group 1 race run over 2000 meters.

Mad Rush will need to finish with at least a show in this weekend’s Caufield Cup if he wishes to qualify for the 2008 Melbourne Cup.

Luca Cumani’s daughter, Francesca, is hoping that Mad Rush will follow in the footsteps of Purple Moon, who finished 6th in the Caufield Cup last year to earn a place in the year’s most prestigious handicap.

“A run similar to Purple Moon, finishing off and well on the line would be encouraging” Cumani told reporters. “Preferably in the first six I would imagine and just running on strongly at the end. It’s important to see where he’s going and how he’s progressing in his training.”

“Obviously you want a nice encouraging run and if he finds himself in the mix, even better.”

Mad Rush will run the Caufield Cup starting in stall number 17, and Cumani believes that her charge has what it takes to shine in a race run at pace by a large field.

“It’s a whole different lot of horses that he’s running against this year,” Cumani concluded. “We’ll have to hope he is a bit better to win this year.”

Jockey Kerrin McEvoy believes that the Godolphin stable should send All The Good to the Melbourne Cup if he performs well at this weekend’s Caufield Cup.

All The Good is one of two international entries in the Caufield Cup, and will run in one of Australia’s most prestigious group races alongside Demott Weld’s Mad Rush.

Godolphin have tasked McEvoy with riding All The Good this weekend, and the jockey is confident in his horse’s ability to perform after watching recordings of his impressive win at the Newburgh Handicap.

“His run was fantastic in the Ebor. It’s a quality handicap, normally a true test of a horse’s ability and a good lead-up race for the races out here,” McEvoy told reporters. 

“He settled mid-field, looked to travel strongly and had a good turn of foot from the 400m, and if he brings that sort of form he should run well.”

McEvoy believes that the Flemington Park racecourse may be better suited to All The Good’s abilities than the Caufield track, and has urged Godolphin trainer Saeed Bin Suroor to give All The Good an opportunity  in the year’s most prestigious handicap.

“He may be better suited in the Melbourne Cup, but he’s in good shape and I’m happy going into Saturday’s race,” McEvoy said. “He needs to adapt to Caulfield and things go right, but I think he’s a lively outsider.”

Aidan O’Brien’s 2008 Melbourne Cup hopeful Septimus is due to arrive in Australia on Saturday morning along with stable mates Alessandro Volta and Honolulu.

On the same flight will be another set of runners from the most powerful European contingent ever to participate in the Melbourne Cup, including Jane Chapple-Hyam’s Yellowstone, French owned Varevees and Dermot Weld’s Profound Beauty.

While many punters will be focusing on William Hill’s 5/1 favourite, Septimus, as he prepares for the Melbourne Cup, it would be perilous to ignore Dermot Weld’s entry into the 2008 Melbourne Cup.

At present Weld is the only European trainer to have claimed the Melbourne Cup, winning his first Melbourne Cup in 1993 with Vintage Crop and repeating this achievement in 2002 with Media Puzzle.

William Hill currently have Profound Beauty priced at generous odds of 20/1. Honolulu is also priced at 20/1, while Yellowstone will pay out 33/1 if he wins the 2008 Melbourne Cup.

Ante-post bets place at William Hill presently pay each-way to 4th place.

Australian champion jockey, and 2007 Melbourne Cup runner-up Damien Oliver will begin his preparations for the 2008 Melbourne Cup with a ride on Mad Rush at the Caufield Cup this weekend.

Cumani will be partnering trainer Luca Cumani in the Caufield Cup. The same partnership contested the 2007 Melbourne Cup when Oliver finished second on Purple Moon behind cup winner Efficient.

“Damien Oliver did a piece of work on Mad Rush and everything reportedly went very well,” Cumani told reporters. “We have booked Damien to ride in the Caulfield Cup and the plan at this stage would be for him to ride him in the Melbourne Cup also.”

Luca Cumani has also entered Bauer into the Caufield Cup, and is hoping a top 5 finish by his runner will give him a second option when he heads to the Melbourne Cup later this year.

“I think Bauer either needs to win Geelong Cup or finish in the first five in the Caulfield to get into the Melbourne Cup,” Cumani was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. “We haven’t decided which race he will run in, but we will make a decision soon.”

Australian trainer, Brian Mayfield-Smith, has decided to pull Maybe Better out of the Caulfield Cup in preparation for the 2008 Melbourne Cup.

Maybe Better was a notable omission from the lists of Caulfield Cup acceptors yesterday, after Mayfield-Smith decided to instead run his stayer in the Winning Edge Presentation Stakes on Saturday.

“The Caulfield Cup is a hard, tough race and can take a bit of a toll on horses so I wanted to avoid that with him,” Mayfield-Smith told reporters. “I just want to step up nicely to the Melbourne Cup.”

Maybe Better will run at the Moonee Valley Cup in late October as he wraps up preparations for the 2008 Melbourne Cup.

“I have just aimed him solely at the Melbourne Cup,” Mayfield-Smith said.

Maybe Better has excellent Melbourne Cup pedigree, and was the highest placed Australian finisher in the 2006 Melbourne Cup behind the Japanese duo of Delta Blue and Pop Rock.

At present Maybe Better is priced 33/1 in William Hill’s Melbourne Cup betting markets.

“He’s still not quite ready yet,” Mayfield-Smith said ahead of this weekend’s outing at Caulfield. “If he won the Winning Edge it wouldn’t surprise me, but this is the run that will bring him on.”

VRC chief executive Dale Monteith has confirmed that four of the United Kingdom’s biggest stables will be fielding runners in the 2008 Melbourne Cup.

With three runners in quarantine for Aidan O’Brien, and one each for Luca Cumani, Dermott Weld and Saeed bin Suroor, the 2008 renewal of the Melbourne Cup will represent the first time stayers representing all four trainers will compete in the race.

“To have those four leading European trainers coming out is a true indication of where the Melbourne Cup now sits,” Monteith said. “Internationally, it is recognised as the championship staying event of the world. To have them here with their great horses is a form of fulfilment of a vision that began well before my time at the VRC.”

The presence of some of the United Kingdom’s top stayers at the Spring Racing Carnival is expected to have a significant effect on attendances at this year’s meeting.

“Whenever you get any international sport, I think the public’s interest follows,” Monteith continued. “Financially the return to the industry has been considerable.”