Irish Echo Sport

Ireland’s four main hopefuls for next month’s Melbourne Cup have all arrived safely in Victoria and are reported to have suffered no ill effects from their testing journeys.

Aidan O’Brien’s three charges – Cup favourite Septimus and stablemates Alessandro Volta and Honolulu – had their first sojourn out of quarantine on Tuesday as they took a light canter at their base in Sandown.

O’Brien’s travelling foreman Andrew Murphy also revealed that the trio were all back to their normal weights after losing a little over the course of the trying trip to Australia.

Ireland’s fourth challenger, Dermot Weld’s increasingly shortening Profound Beauty, is also reported to have travelled extremely well and handler David Phillips has said the mare had aleady put back on the eight kilograms she had lost in transit.