Dream week for Lindsays but now a higher mountain to climb

Joliestar (black and gold) is ready for the race of her life in the Everest.

RACING’S WEEKEND WONDERLAND

Friday

Matamata: Team Wealleans Matamata Cup, 4.02pm

Addington harness: Lamb And Hayward Canterbury Classic, 9.35pm

Saturday

Ellerslie: $550,000 Livamol Classic, 4.59pm

Randwick: A$20million Everest, 6.15pm (NZ time)

Caulfield: A$5million Caulfield Cup, 7.15pm (NZ time)

Melton harness: A$250,000 Victoria Cup, featuring Leap To Fame, 11.22pm (NZ time)

Brendan Lindsay’s phone has been running hot.

Nothing unusual in that. Lindsay is a busy man, even after selling Sistema, the company he built for over $600 million in 2016.

A year later, Lindsay and wife Jo bought iconic Cambridge Stud, and when you own a stud farm the phone rings a lot. Plenty of times the news isn’t good.

Wednesday wasn’t one of those days.

The Lindsays are in Sydney for the build-up to the A$20m Everest in which they have Joliestar as the second favourite. But the winning has already started.

At Caulfield on Wednesday, filly Torture won the listed Debutant Stakes as the first Australian starter for Cambridge Stud’s stallion Sword Of State.

A Group 1 winner at 2 and good enough to beat subsequent best sprinter in the world Imperatriz at 3, Sword Of State’s stock were popular at the sales last season and the word was out.

But you still have to win and winning a black type juvenile race in Australia with your first runner is as good as it gets for stud farm owners.

“How many New Zealand stallions would have had a black type winner from their first starter in Australia?” beamed Lindsay.

“It is a wonderful start and the phone has been going hot. Cameron Ring [stud representative] is over here and was on his way to the Hunter Valley and when he got there he had about 40 missed calls.”

Sword Of State’s commercial appeal will also be helped by the sad passing of his legendary father Snitzel with the Cambridge Stud stallion now giving breeders access to those same bloodlines for a fraction of the price.

Wednesday’s dream result comes in the week the Joliestar team hope for better luck in the Everest, Take Two.

Joliestar slightly missed the kick in the glamour race last year and charged home late.

The stars look to be aligning for her this week, with the mare in form and champion Kiwi jockey James McDonald choosing to ride her over stablemate Lady Shenandoah.

Joliestar has drawn barrier 5 and Lindsay says they hope she can jump away smoothly and possibly track hot favourite Ka Ying Rising, who many believe will sit third just off a speed set by Mazu and Overpass.

“That would be the ideal scenario,” says Lindsay.

“Chris [Waller, trainer] couldn’t be happier so she will get her chance.”

Lindsay has been impressed by the whole Everest experience with the race a week-long series of parties in Sydney.

The fiercely parochial Lindsay says if Joliestar wins the Everest it will be a New Zealand victory even though she was bred and purchased in Australia.

She sits alongside fellow Kiwi reps, on different levels, in Ka Ying Rising (bred and trialed here), Jedibeel (bred and sold here), War Machine (bred, sold but still part-owned here) and Jimmysstar, who raced here before being transferred to Australia but is still part-owned here.

They combine for the biggest New Zealand assault on this most Australian of races which remarkably now dwarfs the Caulfield Cup, also run tomorrow, in the eyes of many New Zealand punters.

“I know she was bred in Australia but if she wins it will be a New Zealand victory to us and the first time the Everest trophy has come back to New Zealand.

“We could become the second New Zealanders to conquer Everest for the first time.

“But Sir Edmund Hillary will always be the first,” says Lindsay, a proud Kiwi win or lose on Saturday.

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.