'Racing keeps the family together' - Lonhro connection guides Sun’s path to Oaks

The Gleeson family, the breeders of top sprinter Rothfire, are enjoying a different side to the racing industry that could have a Group 1 result in the Queensland Oaks.

As a chapter on Lonhro’s influence over modern-day Australian racing closes, another one could be written around the outcome of the Queensland Oaks.

In the week when the progeny of his last crop of foals was offered for public auction at a yearling sale for the final time, a strong pedigree link to Lonhro will put the focus on an Oaks outsider.

Sun Worshipper goes into the classic as a homegrown chance, the last one of her kind left standing on an Oaks trail as the only Queensland filly to contest the Group 1 race.

Her presence is a milestone achievement for Gleeson Thoroughbred Connections and represents a nod to a breeding page that includes Lonhro as a not-too-distant relation.

Sun Worshipper’s great grand-dam is Shadea, the mother of Lonhro, a true champion of the turf after excelling on the racetrack before a decorated career at stud and becoming a sire of sires. 

Strengthening the connection, the filly’s dam Belief, like Lonhro, features Zabeel as her grandsire. 

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Lonhro died in April last year as one of only two Australian horses to be crowned as racehorse of the year and champion sire. 

He is closing in on siring 1100 winners with almost 100 of them successful at stakes level and a reminder of his legacy was on display during the Magic Millions National Yearling Sale this week.

Two Lots by Lonhro were consigned to the Gold Coast sale. One sold for $30,000 and the other was passed in, closing out an era for the handsome stallion known during his racing days as “the people’s horse”.

But it is by no means the end of the Lonhro story and Simon Gleeson believes the fact he appears in Sun Worshipper’s maternal side has helped her come to the fore on a path to the Oaks and promises to serve her well on Saturday.

Sun Worshipper is by Telemon Thoroughbreds’ Zoustar stallion Sun City and she goes into the Oaks as an outlier from what Gleeson has seen so far with her sire’s progeny.

“Most of them look like they’re sort of sprinting types but with Sun Worshipper we actually wish Saturday’s race was 2400 metres and not 2200 metres,” he said.

“With Reset and Lonhro on her mother’s side, maybe she gets that bit of stamina from her dam rather than her sire.”

Gleeson and his family purchased Sun Worshipper’s dam, the Reset mare Belief, from a Darley/Godolphin dispersal for a modest sum at an Inglis auction in Melbourne almost a decade ago.

“Sun Worshipper was the last horse off the farm before Mum and Dad sold and she’s probably the first one we leased out to race,” Gleeson said.

The Gleeson family holds recent prominence as the breeders of Rothfire, one of Queensland’s best sprinters as a Group 1-winning two-year-old who went close to recapturing past glories when narrowly beaten in the Doomben 10,000 last month. 

They sold him out of the paddock to leading Brisbane trainer Robert Heathcote for $10,000 at the height of a business that looks vastly different these days.

From a broodmare band of 25, the Gleesons have kept only four for breeding.

Sun Worshipper’s dam Belief was among those moved on in 2022 when Gleeson’s father Wally accepted an offer for the family farm near Chinchilla in Queensland’s Western Downs region.

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Winning three races and collecting two stakes placings in a career that started in modest surroundings with a Rockhampton victory, Sun Worshipper has become a sentimental flagbearer for the family’s decision to scale back its breeding interests to concentrate on racing.

She is trained out of Toowoomba by Matt Kropp and will be ridden by Angela Jones who is sitting second in the Brisbane jockeys’ premiership. Like Sun Worshipper’s owners, the trainer and jockey are also searching for a Group 1 breakthrough.

“This is our first Group 1 runner (as owners) and we’re sort of pinching ourselves that we’ve actually got one running in the Oaks,” Gleeson said.

“When the farm was sold we decided to change things. We thought the best model for us was to breed to race rather than breed to sell yearlings.

“For us as smaller breeders it was starting to get very hard to breed and sell with the costs, the risk and service fees and all those sorts of things.”

Gleeson, a former committee member of the Brisbane Racing Club, said the fickle nature of the market made it harder for small commercial breeders..   

“You might get one in 15 (yearlings) that makes really good money. If something doesn’t line up it makes it very difficult. The market has changed significantly. That's not a bad thing, but it's just different for those smaller breeders,” he said,

“We still dabble and we still play around but it's not to the extent that we were because we were probably a small fish in a big sea.”

Rothfire has been withdrawn from the Kingsford Smith Cup, leaving Sun Worshipper as the only Queensland-bred horse assured of a start among a typically strong interstate contingent in the three Group 1 races at Eagle Farm on Saturday.

But the absence of Rothfire doesn’t lessen the occasion for the family who race Sun Worshipper with a group of friends, bringing with them a new outlook on racing.

“For a small breeder like us, it’s a great result,” Gleeson says.

“But it's certainly brought a lot more excitement because we didn't really race any horses before. We just sold and now we’re really enjoying the industry in a different way with a whole bunch of mates.

“Racing also helps keep the family together and we all go to the races and actually enjoy the social side of it now.”