While all eyes will be on Black Caviar when she returns to Flemington for Lightning Stakes day, a close relationship will make her debut.
A two-year-old foal from Mare Naturale, who is the sister of the Black Caviar, Ole Kirk will compete with Talindert for $ 140,000 at Flemington.
Trained by the Hawkes team, Ole Kirk has had two tests at Flemington that led to his first assignment.
His first jump was on the Flemington indoor turf in a heat that was completed in 51.11 seconds.
He then finished fourth in his second jump over 800 meters on February 2 of the course in a series in which he ran 50.33 seconds.
The Hawkes team has a close association with the Black Caviar family, having trained half-brother All Too Hard and the Black Caviar foal by Sebring, Prince Of Caviar.
The four-year-old finished his career with a win and three seconds in his six starts.
Ole Kirk sold for $ 675,000 at the 2019 Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale.
Black Caviar co-owner Neil Werrett owns a stake in Ole Kirk, as does Gilgai Farm, the champion mare’s breeder.
Foals of black caviar
News of the arrival of the fifth Black Caviar foal, an I Am Invincible filly, came out earlier this week and reports are already glowing.
The undefeated superstar has now produced four fillies and one foal for five different bulls, and the last filly is said to be more like her mother, than at 12 years old, looks like a hand in this breeding business.
We have had the opportunity to review the arrival and subsequent races of those five foals, starting with Oscietra.
Exceed and Excel filly, foiled on September 12, 2014
Huge fanfare greeted the arrival of Black Caviar’s first filly, an Exceed And Excel bay. It was marked with two small white socks and a little white touch on her head.
Called Oscietra, a reference to a type of caviar, she went to Lindsay Park to be trained and made her debut on New Year’s Day 2017, ranking third. She achieved her first success at Geelong in August 2017 before registering a second victory at Ballarat in February this year. She was blessed with great speed, but was not particularly solid.
Annoying injuries saw her owners choose to withdraw her when she was 3 years old. She was served by I am invincible this spring.
Foal Sebring, foal September 23, 2015
The second time around champion mare produced another bay, this time a colt by Sebring, with a distinctive white blaze.
He would be named Prince of Caviar and would run in the same interests as his older sister and mother. But he was sent to John, Wayne and Michael Hawkes to train.
I debuted at Sandown in May, running fourth. Sent for a brief period, he returned with a couple of seconds before breaking his maiden impressively recently in Bendigo.
That victory was over 1,300m, and the Hawkes family believes it will be better suited to distance. It looks like a possible Guinean prospect in the fall.