Ascot Likely For Australia

ASCOT LIKELY FOR AUSTRALIA 
Triple Group 1 winner Australia (GB) (Galileo {Ire}), who suffered a shock defeat when second to The Grey Gatsby (Ire) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}) in Saturday’s G1 Irish Champion S., is likely to head to either the G1 Queen Elizabeth S. over a mile or the 1 1/4 mile G1 Champion S. on QIPCO Champions Day at Ascot Oct. 18. 
“The [owners] will decide where he goes next,” said trainer Aidan O’Brien. “Obviously there is Champions Day, and they will decide whether it is the mile and a quarter race or the mile. He travels very strongly through his races and he did the same again [Saturday], so I doubt he will go for the Arc.” 
O’Brien chalked the 3-year-old defeat down to bad luck. 
“Everything that could go wrong went wrong,” he said. “He was handy and the pace was on and then the pace came back to him and he had to go to the outside of [Al Kazeem], and then he couldn’t get back behind him. He ended up having to go early.” 
Jockey Joseph O’Brien has come under some criticism for his ride, but he remained philosophical, telling At the Races, “It’s a great game. You have your ups and your downs. Australia ran a good race. Things probably couldn’t have gone much worse for me and things probably couldn’t have gone better for the winner. On the day I just got touched off, but we live to fight another day.”