LIKE every other rider at The Valley on Saturday, Swan Hill jockey Harry Coffey’s latest city triumph was sadly diminished by another race fall.
In the $175,000 Abell Stakes over 1200m, gun young jockey Teo Nugent fell after his horse Florescent Star appeared to clip the heels of eventual runner-up In The Boat.
Nugent was taken to hospital with suspected spinal damage. Tragically, Florescent Star sustained fatal injuries in the fall.
It was the third successive weekend of race falls at Melbourne meetings.
Mark Zahra and Ethan Brown came down in the Group 1 Australian Guineas on March 4. Seven days later superstar riders Jamie Kah and Craig Williams fell in the Group 2 VRC Sires Produce Stakes.
Zahra walked away from his fall while Brown, Kah and Williams each required hospitalisation. Had he not been injured, Williams would have been on Mr Brightside, which won the $5 million All-Star Mile in the race after Saturday’s fall.
While he remained composed post-race, when Coffey spoke about the fall, and fellow jockey Nugent, his emotions could not be hidden.
“Thoughts to Teo and obviously the horse’s connections that he was on, that looked a bit yuck,” he said.
“I was following Teo and it’s amazing how racing works, if my filly had jumped cleaner, which we would have liked her to do, I probably would have been in his spot instead of the pair further back.
“And that’s the way racing goes, it’s all about luck.”
In the final analysis, there was drama at both ends of the Abell Stakes.
First the fall and then Coffey lifting the four-year-old She’s All Class from she’s-an-also-ran to she’s-a-winner.
Trained in the Maher-Eustace stable, it was only the second win of the I Am Invincible daughter’s 16-start career – her maiden victory was at Wyalong in 2020.
Set back in the field Coffey did not appear to be in any rush and looked as though he was about to find running room when the fall happened – scattering runners.
By which time She’s All Class was safely out of the way but forced wider than preferred into the straight, with the heavily-backed In The Boat looking to have it in the bag.
Incredibly She’s All Class suddenly switched on the afterburners and even though she was flying the gap always looked too much.
Until In The Boat stopped paddling and Coffey sailed right on by.
“I thought he (In The Boat) had been a bit below par for his own efforts of late, so when I had him in my sights I thought ‘yeah, I’ll be able to get you’,” Coffey said.
“He’s a tough old bugger though, isn’t he, he’s hard to get past and he fought really hard, but my girl, we had a really easy run down on the fence and doing no work, and manoeuvred our way to the clear and, like I said, I thought we were going to get them but he made it a real fight.”
Coffey then went on to ride So Si Bon in the All-Star Mile but with gate 15 in the 15-horse field – which he said meant starting the race from the carpark – and the strength of the favourites, it was always going to be a tough ask.
He finish eighth – dead centre and just five lengths adrift of the winner Mr Brightside.
