Point Of Law storms to a Melbourne Cup win after late surge past Royal Supremacy

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Ethan Brown steered Point Of Law to victory in the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday after chasing down frontrunner Royal Supremacy down the stretch to win Australia's greatest horse race.

Trainer Ciaron Maher made history in the 166-year-old race as the first to train a trifecta, with Zahrann 3 3/4-lengths behind in second place and Juja Kibo finishing third. Maher had seven horses among the 23 starters in the 3,200-meter (2-mile) Group 1 classic at Flemington.

It was just the sixth race start for Point of Law, a three-year-old colt formerly owned by King Charles III. An Australian consortium bought Point of Law after it won the Bahrain Trophy at Newmarket in July.

“He’s just thrived,” Maher said of Point of Law. “All the owners, what a ride they’ve been on! It’s been a whirlwind, really, but I’m very proud of all the team.

“To get three horses in the first three spots ... very proud.”

In its Australian debut, Point of Law won the Geelong Cup two weeks ago to earn a spot at the 10.2 million Australian dollar ($7.1 million) Melbourne Cup, which is staged each year on the first Tuesday of November and is known locally as “the race that stops the nation.”

On a track that was rated soft after overnight rain, Point of Law was up to 20 lengths behind Royal Supremacy at stages but started closing the gap as the field rounded into the straight and surged to the finish ahead of Zahrann, Juja Kibo and Sons And Lovers. Royal Supremacy, also trained by Maher, faded to fifth.

It was a second Melbourne Cup victory for Maher, who trained 2022 winner Gold Trip, and the first for Brown, who was raised in the remote outback town of Alice Springs in Austraila's Northern Territory and survived a near fatal fall in a race at Flemington in 2023 and underwent multiple surgeries.

The owners “put their faith in me, and they’ve spent a lot of money on this horse,” Brown said. “And for them to put me on it, it means the world.

“And to able to … win the Melbourne Cup -- I’ve just got to pinch myself.”

Earlier Tuesday, trainer Chris Waller was fined 50,000 Australian dollars ($35,000) and Astrix, an eight-year-old New Zealand gelding, was scratched by stewards because medication was administered to the horse's forelegs on the morning of the race.

The medication, penetrene, is used to relieve inflammation but is not allowed on race days.

“It’s a very basic liniment most stables use and I guess the pressure of race day, the person that looks after the horse, put it on his legs right in front of the security guard, nothing to hide,” Waller said. “As soon as it happened we knew there was a problem. “I've got to wear the responsibility, it’s my team.”

See AP’s full horse racing coverage here

The horses are lead out to run in the Melbourne Cup horse race in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)

Jockey Ethan Brown rides Point Of Law to win the Melbourne Cup horse race in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)

Trainer Ciaron Maher, right, and jockey Ethan Brown celebrate after winning the Melbourne Cup horse race on Point Of Law in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)

Jockey Ethan Brown reacts on Point Of Law after winning the Melbourne Cup horse race in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)129

Jockey Ethan Brown reacts as he rides Point Of Law to win the Melbourne Cup horse race in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States will stop providing $4 billion in aid each year to Israel in 2027 but will sell arms to its closest ally in the Middle East, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday.

The Republican president told Fox News Channel during a phone call on Election Day for the midterms that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had approached him about the idea and that they have been talking about it for a couple of years.

Trump said Israel doesn’t need the aid and it’s a lot of money for the U.S. to spend. But Trump also said that U.S. aid to Israel has become a Democratic talking point for candidates such as Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a vocal critic of Israel.

“You can consider it barter. You can consider military aid or cash,” Trump said. “Look, we give them $4 billion of things and money, and they don’t need it. And I was approached by Bibi Netanyahu, and we’ve been talking about it for a couple of years because it’s a lot of money.”

There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office.

The United States has sent tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel over the last few years.

In 2016, President Barack Obama, a Democrat, signed an unprecedented security agreement with Israel to give its military $38 billion over 10 years, amounting to $3.8 billion a year. Under the agreement, Israel’s ability to spend part of the funds on Israeli military products was to be phased out and eventually all of the money would be spent on American military industries.

Netanyahu has talked about the need to wean Israel off the aid in the past and has said that the American aid would end at some point.

He told The Economist in January that he wanted to “taper off” U.S. military aid in the next 10 years and that such a change was “in the works.”

But the optics of the aid had also become an issue, according to Trump, who singled out El-Sayed for using it as a talking point.

“The left uses the $4 billion payment — that everybody knows about, it’s no secret — as a signal of unfairness,” Trump said Tuesday on Fox. “And we can’t allow that to happen. I don’t like that, because it’s too easy. It’s almost too easy a target. And Bibi and I have been talking, and we’ve agreed. He was very understanding of it.”

Phasing out direct military and economic aid to Israel has long been a subject of debate in both countries and has gained traction in the last several years.

There are several issues that complicate it, though, not least of which are obligations the U.S. has to Israel under the terms of the Camp David peace accords with Egypt, which require the United States to support Israel and Egypt with security assistance.

In addition, much of the assistance the U.S. provides Israel comes in the form of foreign military financing, or FMF, that gives Israel the money but requires it to spend the money on American-produced weaponry, meaning the funds are plowed back into the U.S. economy.

Unless Israel plans to spend the same amount on purchasing American materiel, U.S. defense contractors may see an impact.

An academic study published last year showed the U.S. under the administrations of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Trump provided at least $21.7 billion in military assistance to Israel after the start of the Gaza war in 2023. The study was published on the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel that provoked the conflict.

Another study, also published last year by the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs, said the U.S. had spent roughly $10 billion more on security aid and operations in the broader Middle East in the previous two years.

While the reports relied on open source material for most of their findings, they offered some of the most comprehensive accountings of U.S. military aid to close ally Israel and estimated costs of direct American military involvement in the Middle East.

President Donald Trump after speaking in front of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)