Disappointment gave way to unbridled joy for Hermitage Thoroughbreds and Arrowfield Stud when Inglis Easter graduate Lady Shenandoah secured G1 glory in today’s Darley Flight Stakes over 1600m at Randwick.
The combination felt the pain of misfortune only on Friday when the unbeaten Autumn Glow - bought by Arrowfield and Hermitage as the 2023 Easter sale topper for $1.8 million - was scratched as a red hot favourite from the Flight Stakes and ruled out for the Spring.
But in her absence on Saturday, Lady Shenandoah - co-bred by Arrowfield with Planette Thoroughbreds and bought by Hermitage - provided ample compensation with a dominant victory in the 3YO fillies’ feature, travelling ominously well throughout and streaking clear in the straight to win by an ever-widening 3.2 length margin.
Lady Shenandoah, by Arrowfield’s ageless four-time champion sire Snitzel, was bought at last year’s Inglis Easter sale for $525,000 by Hermitage, on recommendation from trainer Chris Waller and his chief bloodstock consultant Guy Mulcaster.
She is the 100th individual G1-winning Inglis graduate since 2018.
“That was an exceptional win, and very, very pleasing, because we’ve got the sire and the dam,” said Arrowfield owner John Messara.
“It’s also grand for our partners in Autumn Glow. We and Hermitage have had a bit of a consolation, since we bred Lady Shenandoah and they bought her. For us at Arrowfield, it doesn’t fully make up for the disappointment over Autumn Glow, but it certainly goes a good way towards doing so.
“He’s like a bottle of wine that stallion of ours,” Messara said in reference to four-time champion sire Snitzel. “He continues to do well with age.
“And the mother had already produced a G1 winner in (Inglis Easter Yearling Sale graduate) Stronger, so she’s more than proven.”
Saturday’s was the 11th G1 triumph for Hermitage’s famed green and red chevrons. It followed five G1 wins for famed Easter graduate The Autumn Sun - another Arrowfield stallion and the sire of Autumn Glow - plus two each for mares Egg Tart (Inglis Easter Yearling Sale graduate) and September Run, and one to Rocket Spade (Inglis Easter Yearling Sale graduate).
“It’s been a very up and down week,” said Hermitage manager Shannon Clarke. “It was obviously disappointing with Autumn Glow being scratched yesterday morning, but to have this filly step out today and do what she did was very gratifying.
“It was a very dominant win. I was very impressed with how she handled herself. She and Autumn Glow are at different ends of the scale. Glow’s very relaxed and Lady Shenandoah’s a bit highly strung, but she did it with ease today.
“She was a horse Guy Mulcaster had on his list for us. He’s been very good at finding horses for us in the past. She was a filly (Hermitage owner) Eugene Chuang quite liked the look of as well.
“We’ve got a good partnership with Chris and Guy finding us the right horses, and it’s worked out well for us.”
Waller, too, was amply consoled following the scratching of his star mare Autumn Glow, who required surgery to remove a bone chip from a knee.
“It was a tough week but I’m not going to get emotional about it because I’m so blessed to have these types of horses in the stable,” he said. “Autumn Glow, she’s a star. But this little girl here (Lady Shenandoah), she’s pretty good too.
“Guy and I, we got our heads together and said at the sales, ‘This is a Flight Stakes-type filly’.”
Waller said the plans for Lady Shenandoah were still to be decided but said “she’s still got a little bit up her sleeve”.
“We won’t get too carried away, she’s still filling out and developing, but she’s got a G1 next to her name,” he said.
Winning jockey Zac Lloyd said Lady Shenandoah had shown a “scintillating” turn of foot in a race where the small field had posed questions about tactics.
“I really wanted to get cover on her because I thought if I just get her to switch on she would have a good turn of foot. Lucky I was able to get in the one-one,” he said.
“She travelled like the winner the whole way and I just had to count to five before I let her go. But I don’t think it mattered - she’s very good.”
Also at Randwick, Inglis Easter graduate Airman earned a well-deserved first Stakes win when taking out the G2 Premiere Stakes over 1200m - raising the prospect of participation in the $20m The Everest over the same course in two weeks.
Bought from the Segenhoe Stud draft for $500,000 by trainers John, Michael and Wayne Hawkes, Airman added to an illustrious honour roll for one of the finest families in the Australian studbook - that surrounding his second dam Legally Bay, herself an Easter Yearling Sale graduate, mother of three Stakes winners including dual G1 victor Merchant Navy, who was also sourced as a yearling at Easter.
There may have been only a few cheers on course for Airman, as Lloyd guided the $41 longshot to a thrilling head victory over $7 chance Mazu, with $2.40 favourite Bella Nipotina close-up in third in a trifecta of Inglis graduates.
But that wasn’t the case in the home of the five-year-old gelding’s breeder Chris Barham, a Toowoomba chiropractor.
“I was jumping up and down cheering, so was my wife Jane. Our dogs were going crazy - though they didn’t know why,” said Barham, who stayed in the ownership of Airman, who races in the familiar colours of Rupert Legh.
“That was a special win. We’re really happy, and I’m really happy for Team Hawkes too.
“I spoke to John Hawkes a couple of days ago. The horse has a mind of his own, and he runs when he wants to run. So they’ve been doing all sorts of work on his head. They took him up to their farm, rode him around, jumped him over some fences, and it looks like it worked.
“John had been saying he was doing well all week. So we decided we might even have a little bet. Then the odds were well in our favour, which was nice.”
The win continued a buoyant Spring for Barham.
The boutique breeder also owned Legally Bay, and bred Airman’s dam Zara Bay (Fastnet Rock) and her full sister Jolie Bay.
And Jolie Bay’s outstanding G1-winning daughter Joliestar (Zoustar) - also bred by Barham – a winner last season of the G1 Thousand Guineas and now amongst the leading fancies for the $20m The Everest in two weeks.
“It’s amazing. To have a couple of star sprinters from the same family, bred by a small breeder like myself,” said Barham, who now has Zara Bay’s week-old Home Affairs filly on the ground - a three-quarter sister to Airman.
“As Segenhoe’s Peter O’Brien said, this has got to be one of the best families in the Southern Hemisphere right now.”
Co-trainer Michael Hawkes said Airman’s win had raised the possibility he may be picked up by a slot holder for The Everest (1200m), while conceding he’d heard of no interest in the gelding for the world’s richest sprint before Saturday.
“Look, we haven’t, to be fair, because he’s been a bit out of form,” Hawkes said. “But you know what, this is the best of the best of what’s around and he’s put paid to them. We’ve always known he’s had the ability but to do what he did today, he’s beat some creditable horses, and he’s a good horse on his day.”
