Harry Coffey has consolidated his crown as the country cups king with a heart-stopping triumph in Wednesday’s $500,000 Group 3 Bendigo Cup aboard High Emocean.
It made it back-to-back cups for King Coffey after he took out 2021 on Wentwood.
But the news had the potential to get a lot better, with victory meaning the Maher/Eustace mare also won the golden buzzer and will go straight past the first ballot clause in next week’s Melbourne Cup and into the main draw – although Racing Victoria’s handicapper would need to be brutal to give High Emocean a better than very-slim shot at making the final 24 and at her current load of 50kg, that is unlikely.
Even if there was a 2kg penalty, at 52kg the opportunity would still probably be beyond Coffey’s reach as he rides at 54kg.
Always a racing realist, Coffey was more than realistic enough to know High Emocean won’t be his second shot at racing immortality.
But his realism also got a nasty reality check with a call from the stewards, who charged him for using his whip four times more than permitted before the 100m mark and he was suspended for seven meetings and fined $5000.
Fortunately, the suspension doesn’t start until midnight on November 3, guaranteeing his start on Skyphios in the $2 million Victoria Derby on Saturday and leaving the door ajar in the Melbourne Cup if miracles do happen and High Emocean does make it.
But nothing was going to rain on Coffey’s Cup parade and he was still on cloud nine hours after the race, comparing his win before the crowd-free Covid run in 2021 to the roaring approval of a real racing crowd as he drove home the $2.30 favourite.
“She got an almighty roar and she deserved it, it was her race to win,” Coffey said.
“She was up amongst it doing the work, carting the field up and she got the job done – so it was well deserved for her,” he says.
Speaking about the fight down the straight to take the lead, Coffey said she landed a bit close in the small seven-horse field.
He said High Emocean normally had a good turn of foot and came home over the top but on Wednesday they had to make a real race of it from about the 500m mark.
“I think the biggest asset she usually has is that she travels into the race a long way and then has that kick,” Coffey said.
“But from the one-one, and having to go further out, that took away the asset she has so she had to win in different circumstances to what she’s usually used to, and I thought that’s what made it a good effort.
“Usually you like to ride her a little bit cold and have her having the last crack but today she was fighting them off.”
The only thing Coffey said he needed for his trophy shelf, after his second Bendigo Cup, would be his first Swan Hill Cup – he just can’t seem to crack his home cup.
Coffey rode at Benalla Thursday, is at the Valley on Friday and Flemington on Saturday.
