Imported galloper becomes the third Cup winner for Darley stallion

Without A Fight put Teofilo's name alongside some legends of the breeding barn when he won Tuesday's $8.4 million Group 1 Melbourne Cup at Flemington.

The seven-year-old became the third son of Teofilo, a son of the legendary Galileo, to win Australia's most famous race.

He joins Cross Counter, who scored a barnstorming win in 2018, and Twilight Payment, who scored a contrasting win from the front two years later as sons of the Darley stallion to win the race first run in 1861.

The Anthony and Sam Freedman-trained Without A Fight was the first by Teofilo to win the Melbourne Cup for an Australian stable with Cross Counter trained by Charlie Appleby and Twilight Payment's win coming for Joseph O'Brien.

Teofilo joins German stallion Monsun as sires to have provided three winners of the Cup in recent years.

Monsun's first win came with Fiorente in 2013, while he backed up that win with Protectionist the following year and also scored with Almandin in 2016.

Desert King occupies three rows on the Melbourne Cup sires' table thanks to Makybe Diva, while Zabeel and Sir Tristram are the other three-time winners since 1980.

Sir Tristram is the sire of Gurner's Lane (1982), Empire Rose (1988) and Brew (2000), while his son Zabeel produced Might And Power (1997), Jezabeel (1998) and Efficient (2007).

Without A Fight, who has now won 11 of 23 starts and doubled his career earnings with Tuesday's $4.4m winner's cheque, is from the Dubawi mare Khor Sheed, who was a Group 3 winner in Italy.

Khor Sheed now resides in Victoria, having been purchased by Yulong for just 28,000gns at this year's Tattersalls February Sale and she is in-foal to Yulong stallion Lucky Vega.