Racing: Adnaan last piece in juvenile jigsaw

THE ELITE two-year-old jigsaw can now be put back in its box until the spring. Two 10- furlong races - one here, one in France - completed the picture yesterday; whether it will be the same after the gangly teenagers emerge as young men after a winter's development is the question that keeps bookmakers in Bentleys.

Big horses are sometimes unflatteringly known as boats but the analogy was perhaps not inappropriate as Adnaan slogged through rain and desperate ground becoming more waterlogged by the minute to win the Zetland Stakes. And his trainer John Dunlop hopes that next season the handsome chestnut may sail the course taken by his distinguished stablemate Silver Patriarch, victorious in the Listed contest two years ago and subsequently runner- up in the Derby and winner of the St Leger.

Adnaan is bred to tackle top company, being a Nashwan half-brother to the French Derby winner Hernando, and although he has taken time to get his act together and still showed signs of greenness after he hit the front two out yesterday, he showed a good attitude to repel the persistent challenge of Forest Shadow by half a length.

"The Lingfield Derby Trial first time out", said Dunlop, only half in jest. "I was not sure he'd be good enough today, but he's done it well and he'll be better on better ground."

It was even muddier - if possible - in Paris, where the Peter Chapple- Hyam-trained Bienamado lost his unbeaten record to Spadoun in the season's final Group One two-year-old event, the Criterium de Saint-Cloud. Spadoun revelled in the going to make all and defeat Bienamado, the second favourite for next year's Derby in several bookmakers' lists, by six lengths with the Irish challenger Cupid three lengths third.

Pat Eddery reached the 25th century of a remarkable career that began at the Curragh 31 years ago when Gold Honor won the Suffolk Selling Stakes. An hour later the 46-year-old Irishman showed his strength as Dark Moondancer caught a less than enthusiastic Delilah inside the last 100 yards of the Group Three St Simon Stakes. The favourite Silver Rhapsody finished a disappointing last.

A bugler poignantly sounded the Last Post as the field for the concluding Racing Post Handicap circled the parade ring in the soggy gathering gloom. And to Teofilio, who whipped in the 26 runners in the race, fell the distinction of being the last horse to gallop down the Rowley Mile this century. Next month the bulldozers move in to demolish part of the sport's history, the draughty grandstand that has dominated the skyline here since racegoers watched Camballo and Spinaway winning the Guineas in 1875. The building of its pounds 20m replacement, due to open at the Craven meeting in the year 2000, will mean all racing at Newmarket will be run on the July course next season.

On the sunny side of racing's international street, Annus Mirabilis was only fourth to the local horse Champagne in the Mackinnon Stakes at Flemington on the first day of the Melbourne Cup carnival. The Godolphin-trained six-year-old, ridden by Frankie Dettori, was 10 lengths clear at one point, but was caught and headed early in the straight.

There was a certain justice in Champagne's victory, for he had been the chief sufferer in the barging match in last week's Caulfield Cup which led to Ray Cochrane, the rider of the British winner Taufan's Melody, being banned for a month. And the whingeing from the Aussies that greeted the raider's win redoubled in volume yesterday when Paul Cole's Yorkshire was similarly granted dispensation by the Victoria Racing Club to run in the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday after missing the cut.

The Caulfield Cup fourth Faithful Son, Annus Mirabilis's superior stablemate, is favourite for the 24-runner, two-mile handicap, Australian racing's showpiece. All five British runners - the others are Persian Punch and Sheer Danzig - are drawn midfield.

Escartefigue, last season's top British-trained novice staying chaser, was a well-beaten fourth in the Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby. The six- year-old produced an anticlimactic performance, tiring badly as the front- running veteran Strath Royal beat him off round the home turn and then found his second wind to hold the Irish challenger Boss Doyle by two lengths.

At Ascot, French Holly, last season's Royal & Sunalliance Novice Hurdle winner, was pulled up on his reappearance.