HOW hot can Harry Coffey get?
The Swan Hill jockey is sweeping all before him – another country cup, a treble at Hanging Rock (including that cup), city winners, plus Warrnambool and Great Western.
And, on Friday night, he took out the $125,000 Listed Launceston Guineas in Tasmania.
His latest hot run started with Dunkel at Flemington on January 14, with a win in the $150,000 The Stud and Stable Staff Awards over 2000m – just half a length ahead of the Gai Waterhouse three-year-old Soul Choice.
The run was still going at Launceston on Friday when, back on Dunkel, he finished barely a long neck ahead of Soul Choice in a rematch.
Or, as Coffey agreed: “Yep, I am pretty happy with the week – and being on Dunkel helps.”
That’s putting it mildly.
Dunkel has had five starts – all at metro meetings with Coffey in the saddle – for four wins and a second (by less than a length).
Yet neither Coffey nor trainer Patrick Payne are still really talking up the three-year-old colt’s long-term potential.
“Gai’s filly ran really well the first time we raced at Flemington and did it again at Launceston on Friday,” Coffey said.
“And now a lot of people are getting interested in Dunkel, you don’t often see young horses emerging as stayers like this one.
“But the real test will be when the better horses start coming online after summer. We haven’t yet beaten any real stars, so we will have to wait and see what happens when he is under real pressure.
“Dunkel has great stamina, so we will just have to keep raising the bar and hope he keeps on going higher – he still does a few things wrong because he is young, but he is also learning every time we go on the track.”
The day after the Guineas, back at Moonee Valley in Melbourne, Coffey came within a lip, literally, of wrapping up a huge week with Marcolt in the $130,000 McMahon’s Dairy over 2040 metres, where judges needed a long look at the photo to split the pair.
Abandonment of the Benalla races with two races to go because of rain and poor visibility on Sunday put a a dampener on things.
The day before flying to Tasmania, Coffey had an Australia Day clean-up, with a treble at the Hanging Rock Cup meeting.
He gave everyone fair warning, taking out the opening event on the card with Dissmagic, running away with a two-length victory.
The $30,000 Hanging Rock Cup was a genuine family affair as Coffey rode his father Austy’s charge Bannerton to its second cup of the season. The five-year-old gelding won the Manangatang Cup in October.
The Coffey machine then wrapped up the day with Nerrivik in the next – the $20,000 Evolve Interiors BM58 over 1600m – streeting the field by almost four lengths to make it two for Dad and three for his son.
“Dad was really happy with the win, because after Bannerton did not win the Nhill Cup he sat down and did his homework, picking out Hanging Rock and bypassing Burrumbeet because of the bad barrier draw and Great Western because of the unusually strong field,” Coffey said.
“You can’t run every cup, and Dad is really good at picking the right ones to run in and making sure the horses are good to go.
“It’s often really hard not to pull the trigger and try more cups but you can’t – you have to make sure the horses are ready and Dad’s really good at knowing which ones are.”
On January 22 at Great Western, Coffey and Balmagnus got together in the $27,000 maiden for three-year-olds and solved that problem before Coffey headed south to Warrnambool three days later and jumped aboard Zoom for the Maher-Eustace stable in the $27,000 May Racing Carnival BM68 over 2387m – and zoomed away with the lion’s share of the prizemoney.
