TWO of our top trainers – Nathan Hobson and Austy Coffey – will be having, certainly by their own standards, a “very quiet” Swan Hill Cup Carnival.
Coffey has been winding back the numbers of horses he has in work because of the difficulty finding staff to run a large stable with everything from trackwork to mucking out stalls.
This year he will have just three runners – one each day.
Today will see Mrs Bull going around in a 1200m maiden, tomorrow Simply Sparklez gets a start in a BM58 dash over 975m and on Sunday Brilliant Reward will take on another 975m – but in a maiden plate.
It’s a far cry from recent years when the Coffey stable had horses sprinkled across multiple races on every day.
But even finding trackworkers has proved tough after one of his most reliable – daughter-in-law Tayla Coffey – had to give it up when pregnant with her first baby, Thomas, who was born on May 1 to her and jockey husband Harry.
Over at the Hobson stable, it’s a pretty similar story.
Except Hobson will be wheeling out stable star Yulong Storm to have a tilt at the $150,000 Pooles Golden Topaz today.
With just a handful of the almost 30 horses in his stable nominated for a run in the 2023 event, he says it has been a challenge getting horses through nominations.
Hobson says he anticipated having the two runners he has for today – plus a few more for Sunday.
Plus he has two debut three-year-olds who will get starts – Murralane in a 1200m maiden and It’s Maui’s Gold in the 975m. Both put in strong jump-outs at Bendigo late last month.
Then there’s Yulong Storm, which is poised for a big win this preparation.
The seven-year-old gelding, with almost $250,000 in the bank, has been in red-hot form since coming back from a five-week freshener.
In three starts there has been a win at Ballarat, and thirds at Flemington and Bendigo.
And just in case he didn’t make the cut for today, Hobson sent him around at Flemington last weekend, where a brave run down the famous straight saw him finish second by a neck, with Nyah West’s Madison Lloyd in the saddle. She will ride him again today.
“He still had to get that run at home, because the quality of horses turning up at our carnival is getting very tough to compete with, so I was happy to send him around Flemington,” Hobson says.
“Having a look at the nominations it almost looks like a city meet, with all the big stables sending plenty of horses – that’s too tough a crowd for a stable like ours.
“It’s good for the carnival, and the town, as it will attract a lot of interest and a lot of people, but I have opted to run my horses during the past two weeks at meetings where they are competitive.”
While the two stables won’t meet in the Topaz, there will still be something of a local showdown, with Hobson/Lloyd and Yulong Storm versus Harry Coffey riding Ocean Beyond for Andrew Bobbin.
Ocean Beyond is a very smart five-year-old on its way to having $400,000 in career earnings and has been spelled since late January, so could be fresh and raring to go first up.
