Guest House lands Golden Slipper to give Coolmore’s Home Affairs breakthrough Group 1 success
Powerful colt Guest House put a gilt-edged seal on his young sire Home Affairs’ (I Am Invincible) exciting stud career by delivering an immediate victory in the most important race in Australian breeding with his dominant Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) triumph on Saturday.
The Melbourne colt brought a long overdue maiden win in one of Australia’s “Big Four” races for Mick Price, whose co-trainer Michael Kent Jnr let loose with a celebratory dance amid wild scenes in a damp Rosehill mounting yard after Guest House burst through the line to take the $5 million feature.
And while Price has had to wait, Guest House – while securing his own stud future – put a golden tick at the first time of asking on the stallion CV of first season sire Home Affairs (I Am Invincible) with his win in the world’s richest two-year-old race.
Coolmore’s seven-year-old was already off to a flyer before Saturday, sitting atop the first season sires’ tables on both sides of the Tasman, with one stakes winner in each country from a combined 27 runners.
But now with his third black type victor coming in Australia’s greatest stallion-maker, Home Affairs’ $82,500 service fee of 2025 is certain to be comfortably eclipsed by whatever he stands for this year.
Guest House’s victory also underlined the current changing of the guard for the Australian stallion scene. The first four of Rosehill’s five Group 1s on Saturday were chalked up to stallions aged ten or younger. The other three went to the ten-year-old The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice) through Autumn Glow’s Ryder Stakes (Gr 1, 1500m) win and Autumn Boy’s Rosehill Guineas (Gr 1, 2000m) success, while nine-year-old Castelvecchio’s (Dundeel) daughter Aeliana took the Ranvet Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m).
Earlier this week, Price told ANZ News the Slipper should “set up nicely” for Guest House, as the sizeable colt would race off what is typically a furious pace before having the room to unwind in the straight, unlike in his third in the Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m). Price was also one of many judges to opine that Melbourne’s two-year-old form was superior to Sydney’s this season.
Those theories were emphatically validated as Guest House brought Price his first win in one of Australian majors, the other three being the Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m), Caulfield Cup (Gr 1, 2400m) and the Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m). He also became the first Victorian-trained winner of the Slipper since Flying Spur (Danehill) way back in 1995.
Slightly easy at $11, the colt was well enough away from gate eight under Zac Lloyd, who was able to use his mount’s bulk to hold a positive position of 11th of the 16 in the run, racing on the fence.
Winding up in the straight behind a wall of horses, Guest House used his size again to muscle into the clear along an inside path at the 200 metres. With the trio in front of him – Streisand (Magnus), Music Time (All Too Hard) and Paradoxium (Extreme Choice) – having worked hard earlier, it was quickly clear Guest House had far more power in store for them. He surged to the lead at the 75 metres and stormed clear to score going away by 1.37 lengths.
Clinton McDonald’s Blue Diamond winner Streisand, the $7.50 second-favourite, put up a superb effort to hang on for second, with that Melbourne form fully franked.
Gratz Vella’s Music Time, who’d had four starts at his home track of Canberra for three wins, including the Black Opal Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m), also performed well to hold third at $41, 0.55 lengths further back.
The first Sydney runner home was Skyline Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) hero Campione D’Italia (Snitzel), who took fourth at $19 for Chris Waller and his Newgate-China Horse Club ownership.
Team Archibald’s filly Chayan (I Am Invincible) started the $5.50 favourite but after travelling outside Guest House in the run, finished only moderately to run eighth. Bjorn Baker’s pair Warwoven (Sword Of State) at $8.50, and Paradoxium, at $13, finished sixth and 11th respectively.
Bred by Love Racing PL, Henderson Racing and Breeding and G1g Racing and Breeding, Guest House was bought from Newgate’s draft at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale for $270,000 by Price, Tim Rogers Bloodstock and the Roll The Dice Racing group whose familiar colours he bears.
He’s the sixth foal out of Flamboyant Lass, the daughter of another Slipper winner in Stratum (Redoute’s Choice) who was trained by Gai Waterhouse for two wins and two stakes placings, and has also borne a Melbourne two-year-old stakes placegetter in Nitrous (Deep Field).
While Price savoured the win on TV from Caulfield, at Rosehill Kent Jnr said it was well deserved after Guest House’s first three runs. After a 0.75–length Cranbourne win at odds-on on debut, the colt ran an unlucky second in the Blue Diamond Prelude (Gr 3, 1100m) after working hard in the run, before his third in the Blue Diamond after being blocked early in a Caulfield straight that allowed him less room to build momentum than Rosehill’s.
“He’s had three runs where nothing went right. With the speed on today, he finally relaxed,” Kent Jnr said.
“Zac Lloyd, what can I say? He read the pattern, and the horse was so good.
“What a horse. He won by a big margin, going away, so fantastic.”
Price had won 35 Group 1s solo and 13 since forming his partnership with Kent Jnr in 2019, and while a Big Four victory had eluded him until Saturday, he had proven himself a canny trainer of juveniles, with Samaready (More Than Ready) and Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt) bringing him Blue Diamond success.
He’d also had Slipper thirds with Samaready in 2012 and Flying Artie (Artie Schiller) in 2016.
“It’s so right for Mick,” Kent Jnr said. “I’m so lucky I work with Mick. He’s had so many close calls in this race. He’s a great two-year-old trainer. Himself and Timmy Rogers found the horse.
“I’m very excited. I’m rapt for Mick. He gave me a big show in this game and I’m very lucky. And credit to all our staff back at home. A lot of work goes into these good colts.”
On winning a “major”, Kent Jnr said: “That’s very good isn’t it. What a feeling.”
Ben Elam, foreman for the trainers’ Rosehill satellite stable, said: “It’s incredible. It’s a Golden Slipper. It’s the pinnacle of two-year-old racing, and he has taken a bit of work.
“Pre-Christmas, he was a bit of a lad. He went down to Melbourne, and the Melbourne staff did a terrific job with him. He came up here in tip-top shape off what was an unlucky run.
“Since he’s been up here, he has just been an absolute gentleman.”
Lloyd was delighted after his fourth Group 1, and first major.
“It was high pressure, but my colt, he was fantastic. He’s obviously a very good Home Affairs’ colt,” the winning rider said.
“He broke on terms. He’s been a bit tricky in his mannerisms, but today he was very tractable.
“And I just quickened that well. I was just waiting for a run, but geez, he let down so well.
“As soon as those gates opened, it’s like nothing I’ve ever ridden before. It’s so quick, so tight. I was very happy to find the fence because that just allows the horses to just relax. They get a bit of comfort by the fence and then you just trust you’ve got the right horse to take the runs. I certainly did so yeah, very, very, very happy.”
Lloyd felt the full force of racing’s roller coaster just 40 minutes later when dumped onto his backside in the barrier performance that led to favourite Grafterburners’ (Graff) scratching from The Galaxy (Gr 1, 1100m). At least the 22-year-old had been able to savour victory in a race as important as the Slipper, which he said had left him “quite speechless”.
“You see all those great people that have won it before me, and you see what it does for colts, as well as fillies – how it can project them and make them worth so much money,” he said.
“For those people and the owners to give me the faith, I’m just happy I can get the job done.”
Guest House’s win restored some balance for colts in what’s supposed to be Australia’s greatest stallion-maker, but a race whose past nine editions had included six wins by fillies.
Meanwhile, Flamboyant Lass now has a yearling filly by Slipper winner Stay Inside (Extreme Choice), and after missing to the same stallion in 2025, was covered last spring by Coolmore’s debutant sire Storm Boy (Justify).