A BURST of weather devastated country racing last week, including Thursday’s Bendigo meeting being abandoned.
But didn’t slow down Swan Hill’s Harry Coffey, who kept racking up winners in all conditions.
Coffey backed up his first 100-plus season in 2021-22 with four winners in the past week to make it 10 since August 1, putting him right on pace to make it a double ton.
His fighting Saturday win at Flemington on High Emocean in the $150,000 Sally Chirnside Handicap over 2500m was one of the four, which also included a double at Mildura on September 3, and his first city win for 2022-23.
He had been back in the winners’ circle at his home track on Friday, taking out the $37,500 McLardy McShane Insurance Plate over 1600m on Patrick Payne’s Jaykayann – and just in the nick of time.
Because after one more race, Swan Hill’s races 6, 7 and 8 were abandoned as the rain kept coming. Not only was the track ruled unsafe, the ambulance route inside the running rail was awash.
It was frustrating for everyone, but especially for Coffey, who in a post-race interview after his race 4 win, was asked his opinion of the track.
He just smiled and said: “I’ve got some pretty good rides to come.”
These included the highly fancied Mimi’s Girl for the Hayes stable and the odds-on favourite SixbySixtythree for Patrick Payne.
After his win on Jaykayann, in only its second start, Coffey conceded racing conditions weren’t getting any better.
“The horse did do it tough, but handled it better than I did,” he said. “It’s got pretty hard out there now, that last downpour really made things difficult on top of the track.
“A few of the boys and girls were complaining about their vision, with the kickback on their goggles – I had my visor on but it filled up too.
“The horse did a great job. At one stage I thought it was going to be a bit unlucky because I got held up in the straight, but when I got clear it did let down nicely, only to get a little lost late.
“I think with time it will get over a bit longer race and once it starts concentrating better it will win better races than today.”
Flemington on Saturday made up for Coffey’s missed chances, although he admitted it was slightly harder work.
He said there were a lot of good horses coming back, and trainers all with spring in their eyes.
“It was a really handy field (Saturday) and because of that we had a little more speed, a little bit more competitiveness, early in the race than we have been seeing over the winter months with the staying races,” Coffey said.
“(Over winter) we’ve just sort of walked, trotted and then cantered home … so today there was a different type of dynamic and I think you would have seen (High Emocean) was out the back,” he said.
“And that really suited our mare, they were going along and she got a beautiful cart into the race and she was just too powerful late.
“When you are riding Ciaron Maher’s and David Eustace’s horses at 2000 metres-plus, you can be really confident to ride them, like the best horses, because they do such a great job conditioning them.”
With no Swan Hill trainers getting the job done at home, it took Nathan Hobson until the next day, going upstream on Saturday to Echuca, to finally fly the flag.
It was his veteran campaigner, six-year-old Orienzel – with Will Gordon aboard – putting in a huge finish, coming from the wrong end of the race with 200m to go and simply sweeping right by everyone as they hit the line.
Hobson said he had Gordon aboard Orienzel at its Mildura start, when the horse got trapped, but at this start the instructions were to ride him a bit quieter.
“The horse has been a bit disappointing this time in but he had won on a heavy track at Benalla about the same time last year, and he certainly likes the sting out of the track,” he said.
“He’s still in pretty good shape though, I reckon he might stay up until we have a break at Christmas.”
However, the news wasn’t as good for Hobson’s Moxatation, which was sent out at long odds and performed accordingly.
“He’ll be going straight out to the paddock after that run,” Hobson said.
