Photo: Race Images
Blue Sky At Night (Shamexpress) gave owner-breeder’s Isabel and Alistaire Barker a massive thrill last Saturday at Te Rapa when taking out the Gr.3 Waikato Cup (2400m), extending the couple’s great association with her family.
“It was pretty amazing,” Isabel Barker said. “She is a very genuine mare, she gives 120 percent. It was very close (half head winning margin), but a win is a win.”
With victory, Blue Sky At Night attained coveted black-type and assured her future broodmare career.
“That (black-type) was the aim,” Barker said. “To have any sort of future as a broodmare, she really needed to do that, just in terms of being commercial and being able to go to commercial stallions.
“Shelley (Hale, trainer) said last year that she thought she was up to black-type over a staying trip, and she has been dead right.
“We have taken her along quietly. She didn’t really have a full season until she was five. Shelley has been really patient with her. We boxed along with her, and she said the penny would drop, and as a four-year-old it finally did.
“She is a lovely mare and has furnished. She has got a big heart and she is very genuine. She gets on really well with Tayla (Mitchell, winning jockey), and it was good for Tayla to get that win because she comes and does a lot of work on her. She has clicked with the mare.”
The victory also continued the strong record the Barkers have with Blue Sky At Night’s family, an association that spans three decades and four generations.
“She is the fourth generation, and we have had a black-type performer in each generation,” Barker said. “We have been a bit lucky really.”
Racing hasn’t always been Barker’s chosen equine pursuit, with endurance riding being her passion for many years, and it was on her search for her next endurance horse that led the couple, who farm in the Waikato, into the racing world.
“I used to be into endurance riding and I was looking for an endurance horse at the time,” Barker said. “I went out and saw this mare (Va Bene) on the hills at Raglan with a foal at foot.
“Va Bene was a rescue mare, she was rescued by the horse protection league.”
Barker liked the look of the Va Bene and took her on lease before subsequently being gifted the mare, and that is where her thoroughbred breeding journey began, and she struck gold with her first mating.
“I got her when she was about 14, she was a beautiful mare,” Barker said. “I bred her to an Arab stallion initially because that was my thing. I was then gifted the mare, and she (previous owner) said to me that she crossed quite well with Sir Tristram blood.
“I didn’t know much about bloodlines at all way back then, so we went to Sir Sian (a son of Sir Tristram) and Soldier Blue was the result of that mating.
“He was amazing, he won in Australia as well as a New Zealand Cup (Gr.2, 3200m). We had him until he was 27.”
While the Barkers had plenty of success and enjoyment with Soldier Blue, he may not have seen a racetrack hadn’t it been for a fortuitous conversation with the Barkers’ livestock agent Doug Ancell, who would also be instrumental in the Barkers breeding their first Group One winner.
“We weren’t going to race Soldier Blue, I thought he would be a nice sporthorse, but our livestock buyer, Doug Ancell, saw him in the paddock and said he would talk to his mate and he would come and have a look, and that is how the whole racing thing started.
“Doug Ancell was reducing his (horse) numbers (later on) and he had a mare, Over The Limit, who raced at the same time as Soldier Blue. We bought her and she had (five-time Group One winner) Veyron.”
Buoyed by her early success with Soldier Blue, Barker elected to continue breeding from the family, and had plenty of success with subsequent generations, culminating in Blue Sky At Night.
“A half-sister (Daytime) of his (Soldier Blue) is the second-dam of Blue Sky At Night and she was by Heroicity. She never raced because she got a bit of a blood infection as a foal and ended up with a damaged valve,” Barker said.
“We used her on the farm, and she was a beautiful looking mare and was a lovely type, just like her mum. Out of her we bred Overkaast, who was her first foal. She raced at Group One level and placed in the Oaks, Zabeel Classic and Avondale Cup, when it was a Group One.
“We then had After Midnight (dam of Blue Sky At Night), who placed as a two-year-old, which was pretty amazing as it’s not an early family. She was a stunning mare. We bought a share in Shamexpress and we sent her to him, and Blue Sky At Night was the result of that mating.”
Last Saturday’s victory was a sentimental one for the Barker, with the Group Three result adding more depth to the family.
“It is just really good with Blue Sky At Night because that is a family I have had for a long time. It is quite nice to front up and get the results,” Barker said.
The Barkers are hoping Blue Sky At Night can continue on her winning ways, while they also have some younger stock that are showing early promise.
“I have got three in work with Shelley and a couple with Alex Oliveira,” Barker said.
