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Plenty riding on Black Caviar Lightning for quality 3YOs.
Widden Stud will have to write a big cheque if its recent acquisition, I Am Unstoppable, wins the Black Caviar Lightning but it is one Antony Thompson will happily sign.
The famed stud late last year agreed to a multi-million-dollar deal for the three-year-old in an arrangement that included bonuses should I Am Unstoppable win particular races, of which this Saturday's $1 million Group 1 at Flemington is one.
The Lloyd Kennewell and Lucy Yeomans-trained colt already has stud appeal, being a talented son of Australia's champion stallion I Am Invincible, but his value would increase markedly if he was to win one of the world's most respected sprint races.
The stud fee Widden could attach to the Coolmore Stud Stakes runner-up, whose biggest win to date is the Listed Redoute's Choice Stakes as a two-year-old, would more than double if he was able to win the 1000-metre event.
It is an equally-significant race for the other three-year-old engaged in Saturday's race, Godolphin's Exceed And Excel colt Cylinder, the runner-up in last year's Golden Slipper who is a dual Group 2 winner.
But it has become rare for the Lightning to be won by a three-year-old colt.
Between 1989 and 2005, seven of the 17 winners were colts, some of whom went onto decorated careers at stud, including Zeditave, General Nediym, Testa Rossa, Choisir and Fastnet Rock.
But since Fastnet Rock's win in 2005, Home Affairs, who won two years ago, is the only colt to win.
Like I Am Unstoppable, Home Affairs is a son of I Am Invincible and stood his first season at stud at Coolmore at $110,000.
A three-year-old did win last year's Lightning, but a filly in Coolangatta, who became the first of that age and sex to win since Regimental Gal 20 years ago and since then the race has been dominated by mares and geldings.
The market suggests that will again be the case this year with superstar Kiwi mare Imperatriz favourite from Sydney gelding Private Eye.
Imperatriz, who was a shade of odds-on in Lightning betting on Thursday morning, has the job of snapping a seven-year run of outs for favourites with Chautauqua the most recent favourite to score, at $2.80 in 2016.
Black Caviar was odds-on the three years she won, 2011-13, but she is the only winner in the red since General Nediym in 1998.
Nature Strip was unplaced the two years he started odds-on, fourth at $1.45 in 2020 and sixth at $1.95 last year, while Redzel (second at $1.80 in 2018) is the other to start in the red since Black Caviar.
