Jessica Owers

Amid the dust and the sun of Australia's racetracks and sales grounds, Sharon Lee Chapman is always looking for her next great photo. In the next instalment of Written In The Stars, the award-winning photographer talks to Jessica Owers about life behind the lens.

In the first of a new series, Jessica Owers chats to the recently retired Val Hayward about her 37 years with Magic Millions, her love of travel and the ever-changing nature of her own life and the thoroughbred industry which became her professional home.

While Northern Meteor’s journey to champion sire status was cut short by a fatal bout of colic, 12 years later, almost to the day, Widden will feel some degree of atonement when his first-crop son Zoustar is crowned Australia's champion sire of 2024/25.

New adventures await Sara Ryan and Nacim Dilmi. But before Ryan hands over the keys to Dilmi at Domeland, they will have time to reflect on how a one-time biochemical engineering student and an aspiring but unsuccessful jockey found themselves on the precipice of big opportunities.

From breaking records in shearing sheds to honing his horsemanship under TJ Smith at Tulloch Lodge, trainer Brett Cavanough is determined to pass his life lessons, positive and negative, to the next generation.

John O’Shea never really thought about a training partnership until Tom Charlton started working at his stable.

Whether it’s breeding a Cox Plate winner, completing a Masters in equine welfare, assuming the directorship of the Irish National Stud or starting her own podcast, Meta Osborne’s work in the thoroughbred industry is never done.