SWAN Hill trainers and owners in 2024 paid the price of the growing success of the Swan Hill Cup Carnival.
Just 12 months ago local trainers claimed five races across the carnival – including the Gold Topaz.
This year it was just one win in a BM58 over 1600m on the Saturday.
As forecast by trainers in The Guardian’s cup preview a tsunami of big city stables and jockeys descended on the track for all three days and all but scooped the pool.
The sole winner for the weekend was Austy Coffey’s Tatsuro in the $27,000 busbiz.net.au Handicap, with son Harry in the saddle.
Going wide down the long Swan Hill straight, Coffey drove the five-year-old gelding to a safe win, almost a length clear and at 7/1 no less.
While it was one of Coffey junior’s three winning rides for the carnival, it was something of a relief for his father.
“Tatsuro’s been great, and although he hasn’t been showing all that much this prep, I have been telling the owners not to panic,” Austy Coffey said.
“So I am pretty glad it all panned out well for us and it was a great result.
“And the bar was open for the winners, and we were there for a fair while,” he laughed.
Coffey senior also added there was something special about having Harry at home riding for him.
“When he lands a winner for me it’s twice as good,” he said.
“It’s definitely hard, and with the amount of work everyone on course has put in this year – and I’m not sure how many runners we have had between us – but we have been working for months to try and get ready to be here.
“So I hope we can all just get up and get going again next week.”
In a little twist Coffey also talked up the performance of his horse Simply Sparklez, which he described as “brave”.
“She ran really well, and Harry gave her a beautiful ride and she can be a bit of a rat in the barrier,” he added.
“But today she got out well and was doing everything right, and then just on the line she got grabbed and finished second.”
The twist in that tale is the horse which caught Coffey and Co was Messignadi, which had been trained in Swan Hill by Coffey since it began its career, winning on debut as a two-year-old in May 2021 – with Harry Coffey at the controls.
It stayed with his stable until April last year before being transferred to Mildura-based part-owner and hobby trainer Kevin Arnold, who entered it for this race.
