Opera lands big pot

Frankie Dettori blamed a slow pace for the defeat of Fantastic Light in yesterday's Japan Cup won by local horse T M Opera O. He had to settle for third on Godolphin's colt for the second year running, having been placed in the same colours on High-Rise in 1999.

The Italian was involved in a very tight finish to the mile-and-a-half event, which he won on Singspiel four years ago, but a photo revealed his mount had been beaten a neck and a nose by the local hopes T M Opera O and Meisho Doto to earn third prize of £375,000.

"The pace was too slow for the colt," he said afterwards. "He did his best but the top two colts were faster."

Dettori was followed home by Olivier Peslier who finished another length and three-quarters back in fourth on the Michael Jarvis-trained Ela Athena. Pat Eddery had little luck in running on 10th-placed Golden Snake, trained by John Dunlop.

The rider said: "I was travelling on the inside and had trouble getting him under control throughout. It was a tough race."

Michael Roberts finished 12th of 16 on Mark Johnston's Fruits of Love in the penultimate leg of the Emirates world series of racing.

French horse Reve d'Oscar, ridden by Gerald Mosse for Myriam Bollack-Badel, finished seventh.

Winner T M Opera O, trained by Ichizo Iwamoto and ridden by Ryuji Wada, set a career earnings record and established himself as one of the best horses in the world.

His owner, Masatsugu Takezono, picked up a cheque for 250 million yen ($2.4 million) and that put the four-year-old's career winnings at 1.26 billion yen ($11.6 million).

The Japanese Racing Association revealed it was a world record, beating US horse Cigar's figure of $9.99 million.