Famous siblings... Part II. Would it be All Too Hard for Black Caviar?

I wrote on Friday about two members of what must surely be the highest profile family in the Australian Studbook at present racing at Flemington on Saturday.  On arriving into Melbourne, one of the first things I did was to text a friend, to check whether the elder of the two horses was still in fact running and hadn't been scratched on raceday morning which the trainer had indicated was always a chance.  Good news, the 5 year brown mare was still running in Race 6.  Her name is of course Black Caviar (Bel Esprit - Helsinge) and she was racing in the G1 Lightning Stakes.

I got to the track fairly early, and then when watching the 2 year olds in the mounting yard parade before race 1, which was the Listed Talindert Stakes, suddenly recalled 'oh, that's right, the little brother, is he there??', and yes, number 6, in the Patinack Farm colours, was parading around.  The bay colt, now named All Too Hard (Casino Prince - Helsinge), isn't immediately like his famous big sister.  He lacks her scupltured head, but like her is nicely put together.  I had always thought that it would be a special occasion just to have these two famously bred horses running on the same program, but for both to win seemed to be asking a little bit too much.  The great mare had to drop back from the 1400m of the CF Orr to 1000m of the Lightning Stakes, and was on a 7 day backup.  Neither task had ever been asked of her before, and the other worrying factor was the forecast warm day, and the fact that it had been warm all week in Melbourne, which was likely to produce a firm track.  And you just never know with 2 year olds, so we didn't know what to expect with him.

As usual, the pictures can tell the story.  It was a pretty wondrous result..
















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