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The son of Octagonal, Lonhro hits a milestone.
Lonhro hits a milestone. The son of Octagonal out of Shadea was born on 10 December 1998.
He went on to race 35 times, registering 26 wins, 11 at Group 1 level including a Caulfield Guineas, an Australian Cup, 2 George Ryder Stakes and a Queen Elizabeth Stakes for trainer John Hawkes.
In the 2004 Australian Cup Lonhro had the likes of Makybe Diva, Elvstroem and Mummify behind him. His other great races include when he ran down Sunline to win the Caulfield Stakes in 2001 and in the Caulfield Guineas of the same year he accounted Ustinov, Magic Albert, Dash For Cash and Viscount.
"All he wanted to do was please you," Hawkes said.
"Horses like him are born good. All I did was try to mould him."
16 of Lonhro's victories came under jockey Darren Beadman. Lonhro came into Beadman's life soon after the 7-time Champion jockey returned from a two-year break from the saddle, and he took an already stellar career to new heights.
"Lonhro means the world to me. He changed my life, I owe him," Beadman said.
Lonhro ran his last race in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes in the autumn of 2004, finishing second to the front-running Grand Armee, beginning stud duties at Woodlands the following spring.
To date he has produced 88 stakes winners, 11 at Group One level, among them the Golden Slipper winner and successful sire Pierro, Impending, Exosphere, Beaded, Mental and Denman while more than 70% of his runners have won races. He is a rare example of a son of a Champion becoming a Champion himself and then going on to be a Champion sire.
The man who was instrumental in Lonhro's very existence was Trevor Lobb, former Woodlands General Manager who had for Lonhro's sire Octagonal as a yearling. He describes Lonhro's arrival as a crowning moment in the farm's history, and in that of its owners, Jack and Bob Ingham.
"He was everything we could have wished for," said Lobb, who later took up a senior management position with Darley when Sheikh Mohammed purchased the Ingham brothers' racing and breeding interests in 2008.
"I'd bought Octagonal as a yearling for Jack and Bob, and I used to arrange the matings for the mares. Being from Octagonal's first crop, Lonhro was very special.
"The great thing about both horses was that everyone loved them. They had huge crowds who'd come and stand around their stalls on racedays and it was the same after they retired from racing, people would drive from everywhere to come to the farm and see them."
In 2019 Lonhro stood his 16th season at stud in Australia. He has also reverse shuttled to Darley's Jonabell Farm in Kentucky for 3 seasons, standing there for the first time in 2012.
"Lonhro went to stud with a huge reputation," Alastair Pulford Head of Sales for Darley stallions in Australia said.
"He stood for $60,000 in his first season, he got some elite mares and he delivered.
"He's exactly what you want to achieve in this game – a Horse of the Year who becomes Champion stallion," Pulford continued.
"Godolphin has raced more than half of Lonhro's stakes winners and for Sheikh Mohammed, he's been his next most successful sire behind Dubawi."
Lonhro stood for a career high fee of $110,000 (inc GST) in 2012 and his 2019 fee was set at $77,000.
