Cover image courtesy of The Bulletin, Nov 1969
When the chocolate-coloured Eye Liner was doing her thing in 1964/65, 2-year-old racing was just finding its rich feet. The Golden Slipper was less than a decade old, and horses like Vain and Baguette had yet to emerge.
What had arrived, however, was the Star Kingdom (Ire) era in Australia, and it enjoyed such widespread and continued success that it was quickly, savagely even, the most prolific sireline the length of the country.
Star Kingdom was a son of Stardust (GB), but he wasn’t the only son of that horse to hit high notes. The other was Smokey Eyes (Ire), and between them this pair ‘set up the history-making Stardust dynasty of championship speed’.
Star Kingdom (Ire) pictured at Baramul Stud
Standing as the foundation stallion at Lyndhurst Stud Farm on the Darling Downs, Smokey Eyes led the Australian sire table (by races won) for 12 consecutive seasons. He was Champion Broodmare Sire in 1970/71, and he was Queensland’s leading sire for 11 years on the reel, from 1963 to 1974.
Smokey Eyes lived to be 27 years old at Lyndhurst Stud Farm and, of all his brilliant progeny, none were better than the quick slip of a filly, the 2-year-old Eye Liner. She was foaled on the farm in 1962, a daughter of New Venn whose sire, Newtown Wonder (GB), was a prolific speedster.
Throughout her career, Eye Liner was raced by her Lyndhurst studmasters, the brothers Percy and Ted Kruger. She was trained in Brisbane by Jack Wilson, and she had arguably the best juvenile career of any horse in Queensland ever.
Percy Kruger | Image courtesy of Lyndhurst Stud Farm
She won her first eight starts on Brisbane tracks, carrying frightening weights like 67 and 69 kilograms in juvenile contests. With such a withering run of success, she went south to Sydney to meet the likes of T.J. Smith’s Peace Council and the Golden Slipper winner Reisling (Rego {Ire}).
The three horses met in a ding-busting edition of the 1965 Champagne S. at Randwick, and Eye Liner just got the better of Reisling in a race-record time of 1:09.9. It was a famous victory, one that also knocked off Todman as the race’s quickest winner.
Eye Liner | Image courtesy of Thoroughbred Racing History Association
Eye Liner returned to Brisbane and proved an overall winner of 14 races from 25 lifetime starts. While the Champagne S. was her benchmark, and one that she never bettered, she won what is now the G1 Kingsford-Smith Cup in 1967.
She retired to a long and lovely life back at Lyndhurst Stud, where she met a succession of the farm’s resident stallions from 1968 to 1983. Among them was Grand Chaudiere (Can), that ‘strong and shapely Canadian horse’ whom the Kruger brothers had had the foresight to import in 1972, shortly before the passing of old Smokey Eyes.
Smokey Eyes (Ire)
To Grand Chaudiere, Eye Liner got the 1977 George Ryder S. winner Pacific Ruler (Grand Chaudiere {Can}), while that horse’s full brother, Pacific Prince, held the 1350-metre Australian record for a long time, clocked at Doomben.
On August 25, 1988, the year of the Bicentennial in Australia, Eye Liner was put down at Lyndhurst Stud at the age of 26. She’d had a fruitful and exciting life, one worthy of a stakes race in her honour.
Her legacy continued to live on after she was gone, with her granddaughter, Mean Eyes (Al Ameen {USA}), producing the quadruple Group 1 winner Grand Archway (Archway {Ire}).
