Caviar 15lbs below best at Ascot - ESPN.co.uk
Black Caviar ran 15lbs below her official rating in Australia on her way to a narrow victory in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot on Saturday.
The British Horseracing Authority handicappers have awarded her a performance rating of 117, down from a domestic rating of 132.
The six-year-old mare extended her unbeaten record to 22 races in the Jubilee, her first run outside of Australia.
It was not a commanding victory ahead of Moonlight Cloud, but Black Caviar was found to have torn muscles in her back during the race.
And her owners insist they have no regrets about taking the horse on a journey across the globe to compete at Royal Ascot.
"It's been a whirlwind and I don't think anyone has regretted bringing the horse here [to England]," part-owner Neil Werrett said.
"We've met the Queen and the horse got a pat from the Queen, so if this was the end, she's ended on a high and she's one of the best racehorses ever.
"I'm sure many owners would love to be living this dream of owning and winning at Ascot."
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Davydenko: We all laugh at 'special' Murray - ESPN.co.uk
Nikolay Davydenko has stoked the fire ahead of his Wimbledon opener with Andy Murray on Tuesday, revealing the majority of players on the ATP Tour "laugh" at the Brit's injury woes on court.
Murray was labelled a "drama queen" by former Wimbledon champion Virginia Wade earlier this year after the British No. 1 turned in a miraculous recovery at the French Open. Unable to serve effectively or even run in the opening stages of his match with Jarkko Nieminen, Murray recovered to win 1-6 6-4 6-1 6-2.
Tommy Haas also waded in on the world No. 4's antics, labelling him a "faker", and there is little doubting that Murray is developing a reputation in sections of the tennis community. Ahead of his bow at the 2012 iteration of Wimbledon, Murray now finds himself under fire from his first opponent, Davydenko.
"We just laugh," Davydenko said in the Sun. "Sometimes he walks on court, he looks tired, like he doesn't want to run anymore, and then he runs like an animal.
"He has done that all his career. He just walks and he's like, 'Ah, I don't want to play anymore'.
"Then he starts returning and running and you see his condition is very good. Maybe it's a special Scottish thing. I know it doesn't matter what he says, he will fight for everything, he will try to win.
"He may have a pain somewhere but if you ask any player they will all say they have pains here and there. Nobody says they are perfect. It's just not possible."
Davydenko also put the boot in to Murray's hopes of walking away with the Wimbledon title in two weeks' time. In the Russian's eyes, the home favourite is not in the same class as the world's top three.
"Murray has reached the Australian Open final but it doesn't look like he has enough to win it," he said. "When you look at Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic they look like different players. I think it's difficult for him to go to that level."
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Domenech calls for new French team ethic - Football
Published: 26 Jun 2012 - 15:47:47
Former France coach Raymond Domenech has called for a sea change at the heart of the national game to prevent a repeat of the in-fighting and ill-discipline that dogged the country's Euro 2012 campaign.
Domenech, who was repaced by current coach Laurent Blanc after a similarly problematic World Cup two years ago, said in a newspaper column published on Tuesday that there was no shame in being beaten by the world champions.
"But to lose without showing any hunger for competing is," he wrote in the Ouest France daily.
"In order to cure this it is vital to change the philosophy at the heart of our sports education and to make the team ethic the centrepiece of developing future French professional players. Just like the Spanish do!"
France were knocked out of the tournament after losing their quarter-final match 2-0 to holders Spain on Saturday.
But the defeat was overshadowed by Samir Nasri, who verbally abused an AFP journalist after the lacklustre match, as well as criticisms of the players' performances and expected bonuses.
It was not the first incident involving Nasri, while Blanc himself had a dressing room row with Hatem Ben Arfa and Jeremy Menez and Yann M'Vila squabbled.
Domenech stopped short of comparing the incidents with those in 2010, when Nicolas Anelka was sent home for verbally abusing him, leading to a player mutiny in which they forced him to read out their written statement to the press.
Nevertheless, while he said Blanc should be held to account for his defensive selection and late substitutions in the Spain game, as well as his difficulty in managing over-inflated egos, the main blame should rest with the players.
"A major finals reveals the strength of a group of players, of a generation of players," wrote the 60-year-old, who guided France to the 2006 World Cup final which they lost to Italy.
"This one simply exposed all these stars, amply displaying the huge swathe of weaknesses they possess. The most blatant one was their incapacity to do anything other than navel gaze.
"All it takes is for a few malcontents to provoke a squad into exploding or imploding."
Domenech said Nasri, whom he did not take to South Africa because he thought he would be a disruptive influence, was the catalyst for the malaise but Menez and M'Vila had to take some responsibility.
Menez gestured at captain Hugo Lloris during the Spain game, telling him to shut up, while M'Vila did not shake hands with Blanc or his replacement when he was substituted by Olivier Giroud, the former national coach noted.
"The substitutes are the masons of the group," he said. "Either they strengthen the foundations of the team, or they destroy it.
"Menez is capable of starting a demolition business and I guarantee he would make a fortune. M'Vila could be his foreman based on the evidence of his remarkable reaction to being substituted against Spain."
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Romney presses attacks on 'Obamacare' before ruling - Reuters UK
* Supreme Court to decide fate of healthcare law Thursday
* In Virginia, Romney changes the subject from immigration
* "We are going to get rid of Obamacare," Republican says
By Tim Reid
SALEM, Va., June 26 (Reuters) - Republican Mitt Romney stepped up his criticism on Tuesday of President Barack Obama's signature domestic policy achievement, saying if the U.S. Supreme Court does not overturn the 2010 healthcare overhaul when it decides its fate this week he would dump it if elected in November.
Eager to change the subject back to Obama's economic stewardship after nearly two difficult weeks focusing on immigration, Romney accused Obama of taking his eye off the ball when he pushed the healthcare measure through Congress in 2010.
"Instead of focusing on the big issue, the economy, he focused on his healthcare reform, called Obamacare," Romney, set to challenge the Democratic president in the Nov. 6 election, told a crowd at a machinery manufacturer in Salem, Virginia.
At the mention of "Obamacare" - the derisive nickname critics have given the law - the crowd erupted in boos.
The Supreme Court is scheduled on Thursday to rule on a legal challenge posed against the law by 26 of the 50 U.S. states and a small business trade group that argued the measure violates the U.S. Constitution.
Romney said if the high court justices deem the law unconstitutional, "then the first three and a half years of the president's term will have been wasted on something that has not helped the American people."
"If it stands, we are going to get rid of Obamacare and I'm going to stop it on day one," Romney added.
The 2010 law, which constitutes the U.S. healthcare system's biggest overhaul in nearly 50 years, sought to provide health insurance to more than 30 million previously uninsured Americans and to slow down soaring medical costs. Critics say it meddles in the lives of individuals and in the business of the states.
The justices could uphold the law, strike down certain provisions or overturn the whole thing.
Romney enacted healthcare changes as governor of Massachusetts that bore similarities to the law Obama signed. But Romney argues that the federal law is killing jobs.
Romney's aides on Tuesday circulated a report, first published last year, in which a medical device manufacturer asserted that the 2010 law would cost the company so much in additional overhead costs that it might have to ship thousands of jobs overseas.
IMMIGRATION POLICY
Romney in recent days has been tied up with the issue of immigration and has struggled to lay out an immigration plan.
He appears to have been caught flat footed by Obama's announcement on June 15 that hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who were brought into the United States as children could be able to avoid deportation and get work permits. Most illegal immigrants in the United States are Hispanics.
In response, Romney accused Obama of political motivation in making the policy change, but declined to say he would repeal it if elected.
Romney also was cautious in reacting to Monday's Supreme Court ruling upholding a portion of Arizona's state crackdown on illegal immigrants while striking down other parts of the law.
Looking more comfortable on Tuesday, Romney stood in front of a banner stating, "Putting Jobs First." "Do you think Obamacare is working just fine to get the American people back to work?" he asked people in the crowd. "No!" they yelled back.
Romney's own record on job creation was challenged by Vice President Joe Biden, who accused him of devastating entire communities as a private equity executive in the 1980s and 1990s who shipped U.S. jobs abroad.
"Like so many other things the governor talks about, there is a huge disconnect between what he says and what he means and what he's done," Biden told supporters in Iowa, referring to Romney's time as head of the investment firm Bain Capital.
Citing a Washington Post report, Biden said Romney's former firm helped move American jobs overseas.
"They made a great deal of money facilitating this outsourcing and offshoring American jobs. Yeah, they made a lot of money. But in the process they devastated - they devastated - whole American communities," he said.
Obama and Romney are running close in opinion polls, with a PPP survey in the battleground state of Ohio showing the president with a lead of 3 percentage points, down from 7 percentage points a month ago. (Additional reporting by Laura MacInnis in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)
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