SWAN Hill’s Harry Coffey crowned 2024 the year of his career with a stunning treble at Echuca on New Year’s Eve.
It was a great way to celebrate his two Group 1 wins for 2024 and the Caulfield Cup.
He has since sailed into the second half of the current season with a metro win at Mornington on Wednesday aboard the appropriately named Harry’s Yacht.
It gave the regionally based superstar 43 winners for the season – and counting.
In the overall Victorian jockeys’ premiership (which reaches the halfway mark on January 31) Coffey is sitting equal eighth on the leaders’ tally board, tied with Mickey Dee.
But when it comes to money in the bank, his massive prizemoney haul of $5.1 million (and counting) catapults him into a clear fourth.
He sits behind some of the biggest names going around – Craig Williams has won $8.5 million but needed 62 winners to get there; Damian Lane has $7.4 million with the same number of winners as Coffey, and Blake Shinn has needed 72 winners for his $6.6 million.
At Echuca he picked up wins for the Hayes and Bobbin stables but saved his best for last – winning the final event of the day on Olivia’s Scandal, trained by his father Austy and landing a significant plunge in the final hour before the field jumped.
Then he was back at the office on Wednesday, where he was legged about Harry’s Yacht, trained by the Corstens/Larkin stable, in the $55,000 Sportsbet Same Race Multi over 1200m.
His horse had drawn gate three in the small field but when the three-year-old gelding did not get away as well as planned, Coffey was content to ride well back for much of the race.
Until the field bunched up turning out of the back straight and towards the short Mornington run home, when he shifted to the extreme outside and set himself up for a clear charge to the line.
There was trouble about 100m out, just as he was making his run, which saw the red-hot favourite Hustle In Heels get sandwiched alongside him.
But Coffey and Harry’s Yacht kept their composure and were easing down a length clear when they hit the line.
“I’d been down on the fence earlier in the day and didn’t get out, and it wasn’t much fun,” Coffey said.
“So I thought we didn’t jump all that well, but there was good speed, so why not try the outside – and it worked pretty well,” he grinned.
“It didn’t look nice (when Hustle In Heels got blocked) and my fella wanted to hang in a bit too, so hopefully I was going quick enough and went past them, so I didn’t have anything to do with it.
“The win itself was quite good, he just bowled along out the back and got into a bit of a rhythm with that bit on, which was quite visual, for everyone to see.
“So the team have done a good job, he can be quite a little bit tricky, but they are starting to work him out.
“He’s been in a few good races along the journey, and he does do a few little things wrong, so I hopefully this bit of confidence can really bring him on because he showed a nice little turn of foot down the outside there.”
