Cover image supplied
Three-time Group 1 winner Native Trail (GB) has returned to Darley’s Kelvinside property to stand his second Southern Hemisphere season at stud, and if the rest of his foals are anything like the daughter of Lashes (I Am Invincible) born at HP Thoroughbreds on Friday, we could be in for another shuttle star.
Oozes quality
“She’s only 48 hours old, but I’m really happy with her,” said HP Thoroughbreds’ Kristen Evans on Sunday afternoon. “She just oozes quality and I’m really excited to see how she fills out.”
“She (Native Trail x Lashes '25) just oozes quality and I’m really excited to see how she fills out.” - Kristen Evans
“I feel very lucky. This is the second foal from the mare, and we were lucky enough to get a Deep Field as her first foal in the Deep Field's last year, who we sold at Easter last year, so I’m really looking forward to this filly and what she can produce.”
Native Trail (GB) x Lashes '25 filly | Image supplied
The stallion everyone wants
Like what had happened to many others, Native Trail made an immediate impact on Evans when she first saw him last spring at Darley’s annual stallion parade.
Native Trial (GB) | Standing at Darley
“I saw him, and I instantly spoke to Anthony (Evans) and I said, ‘I want to go to him’,” Evans shared. “He’s stunning. He is everything I want in a stallion, and he just fits with Lashes so well physically. He just has a presence about him that I couldn’t go past. The way he looks, the way he moves, he just has that presence of ‘I’m here, it’s my first season, and I’m going to make it’.”
“He (Native Trail) just has that presence of ‘I’m here, it’s my first season, and I’m going to make it’.” - Kristen Evans
And he certainly has a good chance of doing so. In his first season at stud, standing for $27,500 inc GST, Native Trail was patronised by 132 mares, including the dam of Portland Sky and a half-sister to Nettoyer (Sebring). A dual Group 1 winner at two, including the well respected G1 Dewhurst Stakes, and again winning at the highest level at three in the G1 Irish 2000 Guineas, it shouldn’t be hard to attract a similar book of mares this spring.
“You want the stallions that everyone is talking about,” Evans said. “The one where everyone goes, 'we have to have one of those'.”
The right kind of mare
Lashes was a $60,000 broodmare purchase from Matthew Smith Racing in 2022 for HP Thoroughbreds, when Evans spotted her in the Inglis Digital catalogue in early July. A five-time metropolitan winner who was fourth in the G3 Geoffrey Bellmaine Stakes - beaten just over 2l, and missing third by a head - Lashes is one of five multiple winners from metropolitan-winning mare Feint (Warring Nations {USA}).
Lashes | Image courtesy of Sportpix
“She’s a fast Vinnie mare, she’s a multiple metro winner,” said Evans. “I was just flicking through the Inglis Digital catalogue and I saw her name and her picture, and I thought ‘we have to have her’. We were actually looking for an I Am Invincible mare at the time, and she was very reasonably priced. We were actually expecting to pay a little bit more for her, so I was very happy to secure her at that price.”
“I saw her (Lashes) name and her picture, and I thought ‘we have to have her’.” - Kristen Evans
In a full circle moment, it was Smith who landed the winning bid at the most recent Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale to purchase Lashes’ son of Deep Field for $300,000.
This year, Lashes heads to Newgate Farm’s Capitalist, for a dash of “speed on speed.” In the meantime, Evans eagerly awaits to see how her Native Trail filly will blossom!
