More Joyous: will not go to Royal Ascot as the Cox Plate is the plan
PICTURE: Getty ImagesJoyous owner after
Frankel but not Ascot
Australia: John Singleton has knocked back an invitation to run his mare More Joyous at Royal Ascot and offered to put up A$1 million to help get Frankel to Australia.
The often controversial and always irreverent owner and breeder of More Joyous said the prize-money could not tempt him offshore.
Royal Ascot issued an invitation to More Joyous for the Queen Anne Stakes on Saturday night following her victory in the Doncaster Mile at Randwick.
Singleton said an overseas trip would interfere with plans to tackle the Cox Plate in the spring but as he did the rounds of the media on Sunday morning, the idea grew of a 1,400-metre race in Australia featuring Frankel, More Joyous, Black Caviar and unbeaten filly Atlantic Jewel.
"Gai Waterhouse rang and said we'd been invited to the Queen Anne," Singleton said. "The Pommies must think we're absolute mugs. You've got to dress up and the prize-money is £250,000.
"Then she can't run in the Cox Plate so what's the point? They want to put up a million [pounds] so that Frankel races Black Caviar over a mile in England.
"Why do that? Why don't the clubs here put up a milliondollars and bring Frankel out here? I said if it needed it I'd put in a million dollars if Sir Henry Cecil comes out here.
"Imagine 1,400 [metres] - Atlantic Jewel and Black Caviar and More Joyous and Frankel. Our weather's better and the prize-money's better."
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