Family Affairs - Racing’s Most Memorable Sibling Battles

And amongst them are two of particular interest, with Private Eye and King's Secret being half-brothers.

Whilst their dam Confidential Queen did not show a great deal at the track - safely held at each of her three starts (purchased by Goodwood Farm for the bargain price of $13,000) - the well-related Shamardal mare has done a great job at stud.

Out of a city-winning half-sister to Snitzel, Confidential Queen boasts a 100% strike rate with her first five foals all being winners. With his Group 1 success and seven other wins at Group level, Private Eye (by Al Maher) is her star, but his stablemate King's Secret (by Shalaa) is also classy - the winner of six of his 13 starts, including the Listed Canterbury Sprint.

As we tune in to see the siblings clash on Saturday, it is timely to have a look at a few other brothers and sisters who have taken each other on...

The stakes-placed, multiple city-winning Special Dane mare Temple Spirit was a big loss for Eureka Stud when she died aged just ten in 2010.

Doing a great job on the track with her eight wins and five placings from 16 starts, she produced as her first foal Temple Of Boom (by Piccolo) and her second Spirit Of Boom (Sequalo).

Both Group 1 winners, the Tony Gollan-trained pair clashed on ten occasions, with Spirit Of Boom finishing ahead of his older half-brother six times.

On four occasions they crossed the line together (not dead-heating, but with no others between them), and on two memorable days in 2014 they were able to quinella feature races - the Group 2 Victory Stakes and, a month later, the Group 1 Doomben 10,000.

Temple Of Boom (so tough off a wide run) had the upper hand in the first of those contests, whilst Spirit Of Boom nabbed him right on the line in the second - that moment immortalised by a large mural at Doomben racecourse.

What a tough mare The Fantasy was, the daughter of Gate Keeper after a 52-start career that saw her win 18 races, including five Listed events, before retiring to a very successful stint at stud.

One of the three stakes winners produced by her stakes-winning dam The Pixie (also dam of the Group 1 miler The Twinkle and the triple Group 3 winner The Dimple - in turn dam of three stakes winners, including the Group 1 Auckland Cup winner Irish Chance), The Fantasy passed on her class and durability to two outstanding gallopers.

Having been four years apart, her sons by Noble Bijou - The Phantom and The Phantom Chance - were never going to be regular rivals, but the triple Group 1 winners did meet on two occasions during the Melbourne Spring Carnival of 1993.

The first of those clashes was in the Group 1 Caulfield Stakes, a race which provided their owner/breeders, the Dennis brothers, a very exciting moment as they made their runs together from before the turn.

Into the straight The Phantom was in front, The Phantom Chance gamely chasing - "locked together," claimed the racecaller, and for a few moments it did look as though it was going to be a rather special brotherly moment.

But Naturalism, showing his trademark determination, wasn't having it, and he dove through the centre of the pair to record his gutsy final victory - the third of his three elite-level wins. He too had a Group 1-winning full sister (though they did not meet) - the Queensland Oaks winner Crystal Palace.

The Phantom, second at Caulfield, went on to win the Group 1 Mackinnon Stakes, with The Phantom Chance (who in between had won the Group 1 W.S. Cox Plate) sixth.

We go back further in time for this pair, sons of the high-achieving broodmare Industry by Carbine's sire Musket.

A full sister to the AJC and VRC Oaks heroine Pearlshell, Industry was well represented by four stakes winners, including the Epsom Handicap winner Alemene and two winners of the Melbourne Cup.

Her 1891-born son Gaulus won the big race in 1897, whilst her 1893-born son The Grafter was in the winner's circle the following year.

The former defeated the latter in his Cup, though records show that The Grafter was the better horse, nearly doing a Phar Lap the year of his Cup victory - racing on all four days of the carnival, recording three wins and a second. He was then sold to the UK, where he won a couple of feature handicap races.

A Melbourne Cup quinella - that has to be the biggest sibling achievement in Australian racing!

There were other first Tuesdays in November that saw siblings tackle the famous two miler; the 1965 winner Light Fingers being a three-year-younger full sister to The Dip, who finished 18th, whilst in 1951 it was won by Delta, whose one-year-younger full brother Midway was at the rear.

And last year saw the imported half-brothers Buckaroo and Middle Earth take their place, the latter a game third whilst the former was tailed off with post-race issues (EIPH).

Terravista, who met his two-year-younger brother Tiger Tees on three occasions, beating him home each time (including the 2015 Group 2 Premiere Stakes, which he won, his half-brother fifth).

Meanwhile, in the 2018 Group 1 Lightning Stakes, he was eighth in the race won by Redkirk Warrior, with his one-year-younger half-brother Ball Of Muscle sixth.

The Group 1 Epsom Oaks placegetter Remember When (3/4 sister to the multiple Group 1 winner Dylan Thomas) produced seven winners (all by Galileo), and remarkably, considering that they were all born in Ireland, three of them met in one race at Flemington in September 2022. Finishing sixth in the race won by that year's Group 1 Melbourne Cup placegetter High Emocean was her stakes-placed son Team Captain, who crossed the line with only a bare margin separating him from his two-year-younger brother King Of The Castle, whilst their Group 1-winning Epsom Derby-winning brother Serpentine was last.

The only three-year-old filly to win the Group 1 W.S. Cox Plate, Surround was one of the four stakes winners produced by the stakes-placed Micheline - full sister to the Group 1 gallopers Fulmen and Gay Filou and half to the globe-trotter Balmerino. She also produced the dual Group 1 winner Lord Hybrow and the Listed winner Sovereign Parade, as well as the high-class Purple Patch. And he ran fifth to his three-year-younger half-sister at Moonee Valley that day.

The mighty mare Sunline deserves a mention, though very sadly she died young, having produced only four foals. In December 2009, two of those - her son Sun Ruler (by Zabeel) and daughter Sunstrike (by Rock Of Gibraltar) - went across the line with just a slight margin separating them when first and second in a 1200m race at Te Rapa.

The All-Aged Stakes takes place at Royal Randwick this Saturday, and in 1966 it was quinellaed by Even Better and Castanea. The winner was a year younger than his full brother, and just a short half-head separated them. Both horses won other Group 1 features - Castanea the Stradbroke Handicap and the Rosehill Guineas, and Even Better the Rawson Stakes and the Epsom Handicap.

Private Talk won the Group 1 Marlboro Cup (now the Sir Rupert Clarke) on two occasions - in 1976 and 1979. His one-year-younger half-brother Quiet Snort was also a good horse at the time, and he was down the track the second time Private Talk won the Caulfield feature.

The wonderful galloper Ming Dynasty had a stakes-winning three-year-younger full brother called Star Dynasty - and that horse ran sixth in his star brother's second Group 1 Caulfield Cup in 1980 (a race in which Kingston Town ran third, Hyperno second - quite the race!).

Another classy broodmare worthy of mention is Pride Of Tahnee, who had three Group 1-winning sons - two of whom, Referral (by Dr Grace) and Shogun Lodge (Grand Lodge), raced in the same era. The pair (Referral third, Shogun Lodge 11th) contested the second of Sunline's W.S. Cox Plates. Shogun Lodge won the 2000 Group 1 Epsom Handicap, in which Referral was tenth, whilst Shogun Lodge was second in the following year's Group 1 Doncaster Handicap, in which Referral finished fifth.