Asfoora carved out another slice of history at Longchamp, overcoming a late passport scare to win the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye and become the first Australian-trained horse to score in France.
“Unfortunately, her ID and passport didn’t make her way down from Chantilly to the races today,” travelling foreman Simon Morrish told At The Races pre-race.
“We were alerted to that fact as soon as we arrived here. The passport, as we speak, is in an Uber on the way to the track.
“If it gets here in the next five to 10 minutes, we’re OK… otherwise, unfortunately we won’t be running.”
Arriving just under the cut-off, the documents cleared Asfoora to run—and the seven-year-old delivered, sitting quiet in the pack before bursting through late. Under Oisin Murphy, she collared Jawwal to prevail by half a length in the 17-runner, 1000m dash.
It was Asfoora’s second elite success of the campaign, adding to the Nunthorpe Stakes (1005m) at York in August, and continued a run of European plunder that began with the Group 1 King Charles III Stakes (1005m) at Royal Ascot last year.
“The dumb Australians forgot to pack the passport, unfortunately, so we had a bit of an issue,” Dwyer said.
“But we had an Uber driver do a mad dash from Chantilly with the passport and he got here with a minute-and-a-half to spare, so it could have been a very different tale.”
“It means a whole lot, obviously,” Dwyer said.
“We came over at the start of last year to England (and) we were trying to chart some new things.
“A lot of Australian horses come over in the European summer for Royal Ascot but not too many continue the preparation, which is what we wanted to do last year, and we fully intended to go for the ‘Abbaye’.
“We just thought she came to the end of it when she ran poorly at York. This year we held her back a little bit and wanted to get her to Ireland and France. The ground didn’t go in our favour in Ireland, but she was able to cope with it today.”
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