Vale Bernardini

Darley’s beautiful stallion Bernardini (AP Indy x Cara Rafaela) died last week, at 18 years of age, due to complications from laminitis.  He was a wonderful racehorse who sadly didn’t race on at 4 years, but during his 3yo year he won 2006 Preakness Stakes in the fateful running that the 2nd leg of the Triple Crown, where Kentucky Derby champion Barbaro shattered his leg shortly after the start.  He also won the G1 Travers and G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup.  He retired to stud at the conclusion of his 3yo year and stood at Darley’s Jonabell Farm.  He was a horse that was universally adored both on the track and at stud and the farm was clearly heartbroken at his loss.

‘Berni’ shuttled to Australia between 2008 and 2015 and his best runner was probably the gorgeous Boban who was trained by Chris Waller and won five Group 1 races. While he wasn’t as successful here in Australia as he was in American, he’s become a good broodmare sire, and given he has quite a lot of daughters here in Australia I like to think his legacy here will grow.

Berni was a deep brown horse with the most terrific amber tiger eyes.  I think he got these from his dad AP Indy, because the only other horse I’ve seen with eyes like that was fellow AP Indy stallion Congrats who stood at Vinery for several seasons.  AP Indy is a son of the legend Seattle Slew (Bold Reasoning) and Berni was I thought quite similar looking to ‘Slew’.  Seattle Slew won the Triple Crown in 1977 and was for many years the only undefeated winner of the Triple Crown until Justify repeated the feat in 2018.

When he was in Australia Berni was based at Darley’s Kelvinside Stud just outside of the little town of Aberdeen.  He was such fun to photograph and I could always count on him to give me something fun in the paddock.  He was a little bit quirky and playful and a horse I always looked forward to seeing and always wanted to photograph.  














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