3YO colts in the Lightning

The weight-for-age contest is one of only two 1000-metre Group 1 races in Australia and possibly the most prized open-age sprint from a studmaster's perspective.

Home Affairs, the winner from three years ago, exemplifies why.

His place at stud was already assured before he edged out Nature Strip in the Lightning, being a Coolmore Stud Stakes-winning son of Australia's leading stallion I Am Invincible, but Lightning success was icing on the cake.

Home Affairs was retired to stud at the end of his three-year-old season, covering 203 mares at $110,000 a pop before serving 189 at $99,000 in 2023 and then 224 at $82,500 last year.

I'll let you do the sums on what he means to Coolmore.

Now six-years-old, Home Affairs sits alongside Widden Stud's Nicconi as the only Lightning winners standing at stud in Australia.

He is the only intact male to have won since Nicconi won as a four-year-old in 2010.

You've got to go back five years before that to Fastnet Rock, who was last year retired from stud duty, for the previous colt to win.

Since Fastnet Rock, nine Lightnings have been won by geldings, seven by mares – three of them by the legend the race is now named after – and one by a filly.

Choisir (2003), Testa Rossa (2000), General Nediym (1998), Gold Ace (1996), Keltrice (1994) and Zeditave (1988) are colts who used it as a stepping stone to stud success since it attained Group 1 status in 1987.

Twenty-three colts have run in the Lightning since Fastnet Rock with Home Affairs one of six to run top-three.

God's Own, Wanted and Brazen Beau all ran second, while Shellscrape and Star Turn finished third.

The colts haven't had as strong a hand as what they possess this year, mind you, with Snitzel's son Switzerland, Zoustar colt Growing Empire and Traffic Warden, a son of Street Boss, considered the top three chances.

Sixteen of those 23 colts started single-figure odds, but only Flying Artie, who finished seventh at $3.60 in 2017, and 2010 fourth placegetter Starspangledbanner ($3.90) ran favourite.

Exosphere wasn't favourite, but a $3.10 SP had him second elect behind the victorious Chautauqua in 2016, and he is the shortest-priced colt in a Lightning post-2006.

Switzerland looks set to better that, a $2.70 favourite on Thursday morning, with Growing Empire at $4 and Traffic Warden $6.50 in a market that suggests the odds of a colt winning is around $1.30.

If that happens, rest assured, they will be a much more valuable stud prospect than they are today.