NEWS: Lonhro … a true champion on the track and at stud
By Les Young
The tag “champion” is too often applied to racehorses not deserving of the honour.
Lonhro is not one of those but a true champion who has gone on to match his deeds on the track with exceptional achievements as a sire.
Bred and raced by Woodlands Stud under the ownership of Jack and Bob Ingham, Lonhro was a racehorse who had it all: enormous ability, eye-catching good looks, a great will to win, soundness and durability.
A small and very late foal, he developed into a magnificent colt standing 16.1 hands yet came to hand quickly to capture the hearts of Australian racing fans who dubbed him “the black flash.”
By the Ingham champion Octagonal (Zabeel) from speedy, juvenile Stakes winner Shadea (Straight Strike), Lonhro inherited the best characteristics of both parents with his speed and class enabling him to win two stakes events as a two-year-old, the G3 Blue Diamond Prelude (colts and geldings) over 1,100m at Caulfield and the Heritage Stakes (Listed, 1,200m) over the Golden Slipper course at Rosehill Gardens.
As a spring three-year-old, Lonhro captured the first of his 11 G1s with a sensational performance in the Caulfield Guineas (1,600m), sweeping around a large field from last on the home turn to win running away.
I have vivid memories of many of his epic victories and of a rare honourable defeat or two which saw him retire sound at the end of a 35 start career spread across four seasons in which he won 26 races and placed in another five, most at top level, to earn $5,790,510.
He won most of Australia’s top races up to 2,000m, some more than once, and I recall the excitement and joy I felt when jockey Darren Beadman extricated Lonhro from a seemingly impossible position in the home straight to power home to snatch an amazing win in the 2004 VRC Australian Cup (G1, 2,000m) at Flemington in his final campaign.
Such performances earned for Lonhro the titles of champion three-year-old in Australia in 2001/02 and Horse of the Year in Australia for 2003/04.
Retired first to Woodlands Stud in Denman, New South Wales before transferring to Kelvinside in Aberdeen, Lonhro was a success as a stallion from the start, becoming Australia’s champion sire in 2010/11, runner up in 2011/12 and third in 2009/10.
He was leading sire by winners in 2013/14 and 2014/15 with perhaps his finest achievement being to get unbeaten two-year-old Triple Crown winner Pierro whose deeds also made his father Australia’s champion sire of two-year-olds in the 2011/12 season.
Since then Lonhro has maintained his position among Australia’s top bracket of sires almost every season and now has to his credit some 82 Stakes winners worldwide, some resulting from a short time shuttling to Kentucky where he sired a number of high-class performers, most notable of them Gronkowski, nosed out on the line in the recent Dubai World Cup (G1, 2,000m) by Godolphin's Thunder Snow, the standout runner by Helmet (Exceed And Excel).
Lonhro’s growing list of 12 G1 winners of both sexes includes this season’s stars Aristia (VRC Oaks, 2,500m) and Blue Diamond Stakes (1,200m) winner Lyre while in 2016 his gelded son The Conglomerate took South Africa’s most coveted race, the Durban July Handicap.
Daughters of Lonhro, Lyre (left) and Athiri (right), run first and fourth in the G1 Blue Diamond
It now seems likely that Lonhro will secure the future of his male line after the excellent start by Pierro in his stud career backed up by the success of Darley stallion Denman but also has three of his younger G1-winning sons waiting in the wings, Exosphere (oldest progeny yearlings), Impending (stood first season in Victoria in 2018) and the stunningly handsome Kementari who makes his stud debut at Kelvinside in 2019.
Another bright stallion prospect by Lonhro is multiple Group winner Sweynesse who is at stud in New Zealand.
With so many high class fillies and mares among his stock, it is no surprise to see Lonhro already in the top 10 of the Australian broodmare sires’ list this season.
His daughters have so far produced 21 black type winners, most prominent of them Osborne Bulls, Gatting, Contessa Vanessa, Derryn, Morton’s Fork, Tenley, La Tene, Serene Majesty, Twitchy Frank, Tin Hat, So Si Bon and Aspect, many sired by Danehill-line stallions replicating a cross that has worked so well for Lonhro as a sire of major winners.
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