Rowe On Monday – Profitable lunch for Barneswood team, Hunter Valley sire back in training, Great Southern Sale extended, Home Affairs in elite company

An enigma wrapped up in a two-time Group 1 winner

Celebrating Desert Lightning’s Group 1 Goodwood victory has left Adelaide and is continuing in New Zealand’s South Island for the gelding’s owners Sarah and Chris Green.

The Barneswood Farm principals, who breed and race horses with business partner Ger Beemsterboer, arrived home late on Sunday after their versatile gelding delivered them a second Group 1.

And if it wasn’t for a lunch at a North Island winery and a persuasive phone call from now-retired trainer Peter Williams, Desert Lightning would not have been in the Barneswood Farm colours.

“We only buy fillies and my husband and I had left the sales and gone to a winery for lunch and Peter Williams rang up and said, ‘I’ve just seen a colt. I really want him’ and we trust Peter Williams’ eye so much,” Sarah Green tells this column.

“He’s got an amazing eye and his wife (Dawn) does too and so we said, ‘if that’s what you’re happy with, go ahead’. 

“He bought him sight unseen for us and he’s been the best horse we’ve ever had and we’re just so thankful that we get to tag along with ‘Ernie’.”

He joins fillies Planet Rock and Media Sensation as Group 1 winners for Barneswood Farm but Desert Lightning sits at number one.

“It is a big call, but he’s just a horse that (is so versatile). He’s won over different distances. I think he’s a standout for us and, of course, he’s the first dual Group 1 winner that we’ve had,” Green says.

“He’s just an enigma. He’s obviously won at the 1200 and he’s won at 1400, 1600 and been tested over 2000m.

“He’s just such a tough boy and a brave boy. And when he goes out on race day, he just gives his all.”

Ernie, as is his stable name, won the Group 1 TAB Classic at Trentham as a four-year-old for the Williamses prior to their retirement, a decision which led to Desert Lightning being transferred to Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman at Pakenham ahead of his five-year-old season.

It was on Peter Williams’s recommendation that he be sent to Moody and Coleman.

“He said Moody is the right trainer for him and he absolutely is,” she said.

The Kingsford Smith Cup and Stradbroke Handicap loom as Brisbane targets for Desert Lightning.

After they book their flights to Queensland, it’s a fair bet a long lunch might be in order on Tuesday.

“Desert Lightning’s pulled up better than I did. I’m still trying to pull up,” Sarah joked.

That lunch may also provide time to ponder who will train the sister to Group 1 winner Orchestral, a homebred yearling retained to race by Barneswood Farm, who is currently being broken in.

The Greens and Beemsterboer bred Savabeel’s dual Group 1 winner Orchestral, who they sold for $625,000 as a yearling, a brother for $310,000 and sold the sister in 2025 at Karaka for a fillies’ record price of $2.4 million to New Zealand owner Glenn Ritchie.

The two-year-old, named Miss Black Betty, had her first start in late April for trainer Chris Waller, who gave her another barrier trial at Rosehill on Monday.

A blow for Riverstone with Starlust’s departure

Being a stallion master certainly isn’t easy and you have to feel for Riverstone Lodge’s Nick Taylor.

The talented young horseman took a big gamble last year when he acquired Zoustar’s Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner Starlust to stand at his Hunter Valley farm as his foundation sire.

The son of Zoustar covered 102 mares, not a bad number, but he returned to the UK in February and back into training with Ralph Beckett for owners Jim and Fitri Hay.

Their racing manager Alex Cole blamed Starlust’s “poor fertility”, with the stallion reportedly getting 70 mares in foal. 

“He got about 70 mares in foal, but his fertility wasn’t the greatest. We thought he might struggle for support in his second season, so we brought him back into training,” Cole told the Racing Post.

Sure, 70 per cent is not at the top end of what is expected, but it’s similar or higher than other commercial stallions. Those numbers would have provided Riverstone Lodge and Taylor something to work with.

Taylor and Riverstone, we’re sure, will brush off the setback and look forward to the next opportunity.

Additional day for Great Southern

Last week’s Inglis Australian Weanling Sale proved stronger than expected for many participants, despite the Middle East conflict, the rise in interest rates, and the low New Zealand dollar.

But with $19.5 million turned over at an average price of $66,547, it appears as though breeders have acknowledged that, with next month’s Inglis Great Southern Sale in Melbourne to be expanded to two days.

It will now be held at Oaklands Junction on June 11 and 12, ahead of the King’s Birthday long weekend.

Last year’s Melbourne sale was held on one day, with a catalogue of 327 weanlings.

More to come for Home Affairs before season’s done

Home Affairs reached rarefied air with two promising winners at the weekend as the Coolmore stallion surged past Too Darn Hot as the highest-earning first-season Australian stallion this century.

Guest House picking up almost $3 million for winning the Golden Slipper certainly turbo-charged Home Affairs’ pursuit of the coveted freshman sires’ title, but it was Natural Fling at Caulfield, who earned $82,500 for her 1100m victory, which has pushed him well past the Darley stallion.

To top it off, colt Home Tomurra won over 1000m at the Sunshine Coast on Sunday.

Home Affairs’ progeny have earned $4.292 million so far this season, bettering Too Darn Hot’s $4.164 million achieved with his first southern hemisphere crop in 2023/24.

The Tony and Calvin McEvoy-trained Natural Fling is likely to be aimed at the $1 million Magic Millions National 2YO Classic at the Gold Coast on Friday week.

A $550,000 Magic Millions graduate, Natural Fling was bred by Australian Bloodstock, while Home Tomurra was bred by Torryburn Stud, the breeder of Home Affairs himself.