One of the longest standing track records in metropolitan racing is Special’s 55.5 seconds for the 1000m straight dash at Flemington, set when she won the 1988 Lightning Stakes. By way of comparison, the next oldest track record is Kingston Rule’s 1990 Melbourne Cup time of 3:16.40, a mark that may not ever be broken for the 3200m. The oldest track record at Flemington is the 2:53.90 set in 1964 by Sir Wynyard, but considering that the 2800m course is only used a couple of times per year it is going to be very hard to beat.
A winner of 10 of her 31 starts, Special was bred and trained by the great Colin Hayes, who considered her to be the best mare that he saddled up in his training career. She was offered for sale as a yearling but was not able to make her reserve of $8,000. She raced in an era of great sprinters – Rubiton, Zeditave and Placid Ark were just some of the names she ran into during her career.
The ’88 Lightning field in which she set the record was a cracker. Snippets, boom colt and later outstanding stallion was sent out favourite for Peter Cook, while Redelva, Campaign King and Rancho Ruler also made up the field. She went on to win the Newmarket at her next start. She was retired after the next year’s Lightning, in which she was narrowly defeated by Zeditave, a special horse in his own right.
In recent years, the Lightning has become one of the most important stallion making races on the Australian calendar. Fastnet Rock and Choisir are two that come to mind, while going back a little further Testa Rossa and General Nediym were also successful in the race. All four are amongst the leading sires in the country today.
Among this year’s entries, Duporth, Nicconi, Starspangledbanner, Shellscrape, Wanted and Governance are all stallions of the future whose owners stand to earn considerably more than the $300,000 prizemoney on offer should their horse be successful as the result of increased earnings from a future stud career. Starspangledbanner, in particular, would have an outstanding CV for a stallion of the future if he was to be successful, having won another great stallion making race, the Caulfield Guineas, in the spring.
