No Melbourne Cup trip for Botti or Bin Suroor but Appleby sends three

Britain's challenge for the Melbourne Cup has been further weakened after Marco Botti and Saeed Bin Suroor decided against sending their entries.

Only last Friday Sir Mark Prescott's St Michel was ruled out of the 'race that stops a nation' and now Botti has decided to reroute his candidate Dylan Mouth to next month's Grade 1 Canadian International after his disappointing effort at Newbury last Saturday.

The six-year-old, a 33-1 shot for the Melbourne Cup with Ladbrokes, was recently leased to US owner Earle Mack specifically to run in the Flemington feature but is now set head to Canada with a subsequent outing at the Breeders' Cup on the agenda.

Dylan Mouth could muster only tenth of the 11 runners behind Desert Encounter in the Group 3 Arc Trial last Saturday, of which Botti said: "We would have liked to have seen a bit more from Dylan Mouth if we were going to take him to Melbourne.

"There was no pace, which didn't help, but we may now run in Canada and the US, which is closer to where the owner lives."

Bin Suroor's Melbourne Cup entries Prize Money, Natural Scenery, Winning Story and Red Galileo are also set to miss out, but Godolphin are still likely to be represented as Charlie Appleby has three entries to ship later this week.

The trio – Qewy, Kidmenever and Francis Of Assisi – are due to be joined by classy handicapper Folkswood, who will run in the Caulfield Stakes.

Appleby said: "Our four are set to ship out on Thursday and hopefully we will have a Melbourne Cup runner among them. Francis Of Assisi may well run in the Caulfield Cup beforehand, and the plan is to take Qewy to the Geelong Cup, which he won last year."

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