Chris Waller and Damian Lane have combined to win the Group 1 Caulfield Guineas (1600m) for the second straight year with Autumn Boy mighty impressive in the three-year-old showpiece at Caulfield on Saturday.
The win follows the success of Private Life last year and sees Autumn Boy replicate the deeds of his sire The Autumn Sun which scored in 2018.
Planet Red ran a big race for second while Godolphin horse Observer was an unlucky third placegetter.
LIKE FATHER LIKE SON ☀️
Autumn Boy wins a dramatic Caulfield Guineas, joining his sire The Autumn Sun as a Guineas Champion! Damian Lane and Chris Waller go back-to-back in the 3YO Classic 🤝 pic.twitter.com/XztL6fOBNU
— 7HorseRacing 🐎 (@7horseracing) October 11, 2025
This is what the riders thought of their mount’s performance in the Caulfield Guineas.
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1st – AUTUMN BOY (Damian Lane) Beautiful colt just takes everything in his stride, very easy to deal with and a great turn of foot when needed. So you need that to win these big races, and when he joined in, he really joined in. I had a great run. I was able to use my barrier speed, was good, and just found myself in a bit of a tricky spot in the corner. But once I navigated that, he put the race away pretty quick. Very easy horse to handle, and as a result, had a nice run.
2nd – PLANET RED (Jordan Childs) He went super. The race worked out well for him. We got a good track into it, he presented, but the winner was too good. He ran as well as he could.
3rd – OBSERVER (Ethan Brown) Huge run. The run presented and shut, it cost him a lot of momentum, but he still picked himself up and ran third. He would have gone very close. They’re taking the right steps forward with him, he will stay.
4th – VINROCK (Mark Zahra) He tried his best, ran fourth, had every chance.
5th – HILLIER (Luke Currie) We ran well, he was quite quick from the side draw, he just doesn’t give himself a rest through the run. He’s just got to learn to settle a bit better.
6th – NAVY PILOT (Jamie Melham) He ran well. It was a messy-run race for him, we got shortened early and overraced after that. A lot of things went wrong and I just said to the team, I think he’s probably better at 1400.
7th – NEPOTISM (Blake Shinn) He ran really good. Just never got the luck from the turn onwards, but beautiful animal and if he had a bit more luck he would have run OK.
8th – RIVELLINO (Craig Williams) It was a great gear change move to take the blinkers off. Got into a lovely position, the winner was inside me, but all of a sudden when the pressure came on I didn’t have a horse to really pick up and go. At the end he really stayed on well. Kris Lees and the trainer of the horse has many options going forward.
9th – WEST OF SWINDON (Ben Melham) I thought he felt the ground a little bit, he’s probably looking for a bit more forgiving surface.
10th – WODETON (James McDonald) He just found Caulfield a bit tough.
11th – SPACE RIDER (Beau Mertens) We got into the right spot, obviously we were a bit far back but we followed the favourite, unfortunately that horse didn’t take us where we needed to be. He sprinted at the top of the straight and he probably just peaked on his run late, so he’s probably just looking to drop back to 1400.
12th – ROMANTIC ENCOUNTER (Daniel Stackhouse) He ran well, I just thought the run that I did have he should have finished off a little bit better.
13th – STAY COSMIC (Thomas Stockdale) I just couldn’t get into the race from the gate. I was happy with his work after the line, which suggests he’ll get further.
14th – HIGHVOL (Declan Bates) He’s run OK. Obviously we got back a bit from the gate but he’s ready to 2000 plus now so I think we get him out over further he’ll be running really well.
15th – PRESTIGE OLE (Harry Coffey) He didn’t have a crack so I just advised them maybe come back a little bit in grade and put a set of blinkers on him.