Ramsey selling Royal hope
Chain Of Lightning, the tough winner of the TJ Smith Stakes, has earned a golden ticket to Royal Ascot, but prominent owner-breeder Stuart Ramsey has revealed why he will give someone else the chance to race his gun mare on the world stage.
Ramsey will stick to his plan to sell his Group 1-winning talent and leading contender for Saturday’s All Aged Stakes at the end of her career-best preparation next month.
Chain Of Lightning pulled off a shock on day one of Sydney’s lucrative The Championships when the Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman-trained mare won the TJ Smith Stakes at Royal Randwick.
The performance has seen the mare invited to travel across the globe for the prestigious Royal Ascot Carnival where she would contest the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes, a race Moody won with champion sprinter Black Caviar in 2022.
But Ramsey will put his talented daughter of the Fighting Sun through the ring at next month’s Magic Millions Broodmare Sale on the Gold Coast before then.
“She will still be sold, we will have her all ready to go and anyone around the world can bid on her if they want run her at Royal Ascot,” Ramsey said.
“I’d like to keep her but it’s what we always do.
“We sold Champagne Cuddles for the same reason. You can keep them but the insurance alone $150,000$160,000 a year and then five years on service and vet fees and everything else.
“I have got six kids still alive and 14 grandkids so that’s why we did it in the first place, to provide.”
Ramsey spoke while working on his cattle farm, Flodden Hills Station, situated an hour west of Jundah in outback Queensland.
But he’s likely to return to Sydney this weekend with Chain Of Lightning set to line up in Saturday’s Group 1 $1.5 million All Aged Stakes (1400m) at Royal Randwick if she gets suitable conditions. “She actually like 1400m better than 1200m so we are pretty confident going into the weekend,” Ramsey said.
“She is going good and she tries, that’s always the big thing.
“While she probably isn’t the most talented horse we’ve ever had, but she is the best racehorse put it that way. She wants to win.”
Chain Of Lightning will always be a special horse to Ramsey. The proprietor of Turangga Stud bred both the mare’s sire Fighting Sun and dam Magic Art, making her maiden Group 1 victory all the more satisfying.
“I still can’t believe it,” Ramsey said. “You do it all your life and to have also bred the father and the mother, it hasn’t done be done very often.
“We bred both and when you are breeder like me, it’s satisfying. I’m out on my cattle farm and don’t care if I am breeding pigs or chooks, self satisfaction is a big thing.”
Chain Of Lightning is an $8 TAB contender for the All Aged Stakes with Chris Waller mare Espiona ($3.50 fav) shading the Annabel Neashamtrained Sunshine In Paris ($4.50) before the final field is revealed on Wednesday morning.
A small field is expected for the day’s second major – the Group 1 Champagne Stakes (1600m).