The 3-year-olds seeking to strike at weight-for-age in the Lightning

Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything

No race is a sure thing until it’s run, but Saturday’s G1 Black Caviar Lightning looks remarkably like it might be the making of an up and coming sprinter, with five 3-year-olds accepted into the final field of eight. Previous editions of the race have demonstrated that those who can conquer the Lightning in their 3-year-old season typically stamp themselves as truly elite racehorses - and sets them up for being highly desirable at stud.

Beiwacht (Bivouac) and Tentyris (Street Boss {USA}) will be joined in the barriers on Saturday by G1 Golden Slipper Stakes winner Marhoona (Snitzel), Group-winning G1 Coolmore Stud Stakes runner-up My Gladiola (I Am Invincible), and the enigmatic G3 Ottawa Stakes winner Military Tycoon (Written Tycoon).

A race for the elites

Since 2000, six horses have won the Lightning as 3-year-olds, and three of them have finished their racing careers on the Coolmore Stud roster; Home Affairs, Fastnet Rock, and Choisir all clinched the feature as 3-year-olds, as did Coolangatta (Written Tycoon), who was privately acquired as a broodmare prospect by Coolmore in the August following her Lightning win.

In his 2022 victory, Home Affairs broke a 17-year drought of 3-year-old winners since Fastnet Rock in 2005.

Godolphin colts Beiwacht and Tentyris have already cemented their places at stud with Group 1 wins - the latter, like Home Affairs, winning the G1 Coolmore Stud Stakes - but, to someone like Coolmore Stud’s Colm Santry, a top flight win in open company is a greater confirmation of a stallion’s talent.

“If a 3-year-old colt can beat the older horses in a very high class race like the Lightning Stakes, you’ve got a very good sire prospect on your hands,” he said. “And even more so when they're by champion sires. Home Affairs, Fastnet Rock, and Choisir all had the speed and class to beat older horses, and that's transferrable as a stallion.”

Chris Waller, who trained Home Affairs and this year will line up Beiwacht in the race for Godolphin, conceded it was a good test for finding the truly elite in a crop. Those who can hold their own against older horses are a cut above.

“It does separate them,” he said. “In saying that, it is not Beiwacht’s best distance, but it is the right starting point for him.”

“Speed is hereditary,” said Santry. “And when you get the fastest sons of those champion sires, who have obviously trained on at three, they prove themselves to be horses that have stepped up to the highest level. It opens a lot of windows to sire success in this country.

“Home Affairs has started sensationally at stud. We couldn't be more pleased with the way he's gotten going, and it looks like he's going to have a big future.”

Group 1 form, Group 1 goals

Waller was swift to point out that putting a horse on track for the Lightning is not a hard decision when the horse already has demonstrated Group 1 ability.

“It makes it easier when they have already won a Group 1,” he said. “Which has been the case for both of these colts (Home Affairs and Beiwacht).”

Waller has previously sent out a host of 3-year-olds with that Group 1 form to place in the race; Brazen Beau, Japonisme (Choisir), and September Run (Exceed And Excel) all won the Coolmore before their Lightning placings, while Shellscrape had run third in the same event.

In the aftermath of a Group 1-winning spring, attentions have to swiftly turn to the autumn race if those elite runners can have the right turnaround time to be ready for it. The Lightning was floated as an option for Beiwacht following the Coolmore, and Waller shared that, straight after the race, Godolphin had been keen to set a top flight autumn plan for their star sprinter and stick to it.

“We set our horses up for grand finales, but we like to have them competitive along the way and 1000 metres is a good starting point,” he said. The short course is far from the best distance for G1 Golden Rose Stakes hero Beiwacht, but it’s a good starting point.

“I think if you want to win a Newmarket Handicap, you need to have a run under your belt, and this sort of race sort of gives you that preparation to be able to step into the Newmarket in about three weeks time,” Waller said.

“We don't do anything special to get them there. We just give them a couple of trials and a gallop or a jump-out down the straight, and naturally they're ready to run well and run freely over 1000 metres.”

A love of the straight

Unlike Coolangatta - third in the G1 Golden Slipper Stakes as a juvenile and the winner of the G1 Moir Stakes in open company ahead of her Lightning tilt - Military Tycoon has been lightly raced to date and has only made one start as a 3-year-old, finishing second at Flemington in January.

That isn’t to dismiss her; the G3 Ottawa Stakes winner benefits from the same guiding hand as Coolangatta, being in the care of Ciaron Maher, and from already having won down the straight in the aforementioned stakes victory. She may be the least exposed of the runners, but syndicator Nathan Bennett of Bennett Racing is quietly confident that they could have the ‘smokie’ in the race with the filly.

“She's shown plenty from day dot,” he said. “We probably didn't think she was going to be early, to be honest, but she just kept standing up to everything.”

A recent stylish jump-out win and her prior experience on Flemington’s straight is, to Bennett, a great formula to be a winner. Her lack of Group 1 form doesn’t put him off; last year’s winner Skybird (Exosphere), while an older horse, had placed in the G1 Thousand Guineas as a 3-year-old, but her only other run at the top level before the Lightning had been a ninth place in the G1 Goodwood Handicap almost a year before.

“She loves the straight,” Bennett said. “She carried a fair bit of weight the other day when against the fillies first-up and she was quite underdone, so we have trialled her again in between and she trialled enormously. Her jump-out couldn’t have gone better.

“She’s in a good space, she has lots of ability, and we have been able to keep the condition on her much better this time in.”

Like Coolangatta, Military Tycoon showed enough to be thrown in the deep end of the Golden Slipper Stakes at the peak of her juvenile preparation where she finished ninth, before acquitting herself well in the G2 Percy Sykes Stakes where she was beaten just two and a half lengths. A virus during the spring cancelled any plans for a spring-summer campaign, so connections reset and turned their attention to the Lightning.

Weight for age conditions sees her carry very little weight, and the small field means that drawing barrier two doesn’t phase Bennett very much.

The inner three barriers have produced seven winners of the race since Black Caviar (Bel Esprit) won from barrier two in 2013; Imperatriz (I Am Invincible), Nature Strip (Nicconi), Gytrash (Lope De Vega {Ire}), and Chautauqua (Encosta De Lago) all jumped from barrier two to claim their victories, In Her Time (Time Thief) came from barrier one to win, and Skybird faced a field of nine from barrier three.

“Normally you would like to draw wide, but with a field of eight, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” he said. “She should be able to roll forward and make use of her light weight to sit up on pace where she likes to be. I don’t think there are many in this race that like to do that.”

The rematch

My Gladiola almost could have entered the Lightning as a Group 1 winner if it weren’t for Tentyris when they clashed in the Coolmore in the spring. John McArdle’s filly came from near last to run second, but the Godolphin colt’s fleet foot and easier time earlier in the race got the better of her.

Comparison can be drawn to Coolangatta, who was fifth in the Coolmore - but Coolangatta did win the Moir before returning to her own age class. Casting the eye further back for a better comparison, the Lightning was Fastnet Rock’s first Group 1 win and he had only stepped into open company the start before when winning the G2 Lexus Classic.

For Regimental Gal (General Nediym), the 3-year-old winner nestled in between Choisir and Fastnet Rock, the Lightning was both her first tilt at a Group 1 and her first time in open company.

“He (Tentyris) is a very good horse and he's going to be bloody hard to beat,” McArdle told The Australian ahead of the barrier draw. “In the Coolmore, from barrier one, we had to get back behind him and we couldn't match his turn of foot.”

McArdle’s wishes for a better barrier were answered, and the filly drew barrier eight - which has been a successful jumping off point for the likes of Home Affairs - which puts her on the outside of the field. It will be her first time against the older horses on race day, but she recently ran into fellow Lightning acceptor Giga Kick (Scissor Kick), where she got the better of him over 800 metres.

“She trialled up nicely at Caulfield against Giga Kick,” McArdle said. “Giga Kick was probably travelling a little bit better than her, but she had a fair bit of improvement in her.”

Being pushed, even in a trial setting, gives McArdle some measure of how the filly could perform on Saturday.

“It is helpful that you have got similar quality in the trial,” he said. “It just makes them work a bit harder. She was only having the one trial and she is a bit of a fat girl so it did help that she got a harder hit-out than what she would have against lower grade horses.

“She seems to be better when you space her runs a little bit and we have trialled her in between runs a few times to keep her up to the mark.”

Where to next?

Beiwacht is already peering down the barrel of a Dubai tilt if he can maintain his form in the autumn, but there is a chance for the first Group 1 of the autumn to launch international campaigns for more than one acceptor.

“There has been conversations around (Royal Ascot for Tentyris), but obviously, it’s form dependent, how the horse is going, and what is going to be the best for him,” co-trainer Sam Freedman told racing.com on Tuesday.

“There has been no chat around a premature retirement or anything like that. If the horse is racing in good form, he could potentially race into his 4-year-old year, so there’s opportunities to travel if he’s going well then as well. We had lengthy discussions after the Coolmore and these were always the plan, we can reconvene after a likely Newmarket run and work out where he goes then.”

Santry acknowledges that, no matter the age, Lightning winners have a good hit rate with overseas travel. Choisir is perhaps the prime example amongst the 3-year-olds.

“When you look back at (the Lightning winners), Nature Strip went to Europe and brained them,” he said. “Chautauqua was outstanding on a world scale. Black Caviar, Miss Andretti, and Takeover Target all went to Ascot - and that’s not to forget Choisir. He was a very good stallion and he was the fastest son of a leading sire in Danehill Dancer. What Choisir did in Europe was sensational, particularly with Starspangledbanner.”

Whatever the next steps, for the colt acceptors, it is all about value building from here.

“Beiwacht is a stallion prospect, he holds a track record at Rosehill and his Golden Rose rating was massive,” said Waller. “He had one run up the straight in the Coolmore where things didn’t go his way, so by giving him more experience in that setting, it helps him going into the Newmarket and beyond.

“If he runs well there, it opens up other options, whether it’s Dubai or Royal Ascot, providing he is in the best possible form - and we are giving him every opportunity to be there.”