When Palladium was knocked down for €1.4m at a sales ring in France last October, the underbidder was a major Australian owner with long-term dreams of the Melbourne Cup. One more bid might have seen the 2024 German Derby winner on a plane down under to spend Christmas and the new year in the agreeable warmth of the Australian summer and to the spring carnival at Flemington in November.
Instead, there was a shake of the head and so it was that on a wet, chilly January afternoon in Cambridgeshire, Palladium cantered to the start on Thursday in the maroon colours of Lady Bamford, ready to become the most expensive horse sent over jumps.
