The Black Caviar Lightning is far from Australia’s richest sprint, but that’s not to suggest it can’t be the most lucrative.
Whoever wins Saturday’s 1000-metre Group 1 will be able to boast they have the country’s best sprinter, but two starters in particular are racing for much more than the $600,000 winner’s cheque.
Three-year-old colts Home Affairs and Profiteer will add millions to their value should they knock off stars including Nature Strip, Masked Crusader and Eduardo , who filled the trifecta in last year’s $15m The Everest.
The Coolmore-owned Home Affairs, an $875,000 Inglis Easter yearling, is by champion stallion I Am Invincible out of a half-sister to Russian Revolution (Miss Interiors) and has a place at stud assured on account his win in the Coolmore Stud Stakes.
A Coolmore winner hasn’t stood his first season at less than $38,500 since Star Witness ($33,000) more than a decade ago, but Home Affairs could command at least $55,000 with Group 1 weight-for-age success over 1000m against the world’s best also on his form card.
Victory could be even more significant for Profiteer, a son of last year’s boom first-season stallion Capitalist who was bought by Newgate when a short-priced Golden Slipper favourite early last year.
Profiteer is yet to win a Group 1 and victory in a race as good as Saturday’s would immediately make him one of Newgate’s banner stallions with a service fee to match.
The presence of the colts has contributed to what is the most anticipated Black Caviar Lightning in years and contributes to the success of what is one of only two 1000m Group 1s run in Australia each year.
“It’s a $1 million race and it’s a bit like the Coolmore in spring, for the horses that win it, it’s not just about the prizemoney, it’s about the actual value of the race to horse,” VRC executive general manager of racing Leigh Jordon said.
“It’s of great value to us to have horses aiming at the race with that in mind as that’s what makes a stallion-making race.”
The Lightning boasts many great stallions as winners, starting from Todman in 1960 through to Zeditave (1989), General Nediym (1998), Testa Rossa (2000), Choisir (2003) and Fastnet Rock (2005).
But Fastnet Rock is the last colt to win with Nature Strip’s sire Nicconi, who won as a four-year-old in 2010, the last winner to progress to a career at stud.
Black Caviar won the three immediately after Nicconi with Snitzerland (2014) and In Her Time (2019) mares to have won since, while the other six editions went to geldings.