IF Harry Coffey was ever going to produce perfection where else would he do it but Caulfield?
And on Saturday he delivered.
The Swan Hill jockey, who concedes 2025 has been a bit of a lean time, was booked for just four rides on Orr Stakes Day and he won them all.
When he arrived at the track, Coffey would have felt super confident about just one of his starts – the boom three-year-old Arabian Summer, which was the last of his four rides.
His other three, including his Caulfield Cup winner Duke De Sessa were all long shots given very little hope of running a place, let alone winning the race.
Before Saturday, the closest Coffey had come to perfection was the Wycheproof Cup meeting in 2016 when he rode six of the seven winners on the day (and finished second in the one he missed).
But that’s as bush a meeting as you can get.
Going four for four in town puts you in a different stratosphere.
And his unimaginable, unthinkable day began in the first race, with the Freedman trained, and aptly named, Unthinkable.
Which he said the stable had scratched from racing at the Valley on Friday night for the start in the $130,000 Premier Signs Handicap over 1600m at Caulfield on Saturday.
He paid “big kudos” to Mitch (Freedman) and the Roll The Dice team for identifying the race as winnable.
“They then did the form and worked out we were going to be in a forward position and utilising the horse’s 54kg weight,” Coffey said.
“Friday night probably looked the easier option, but Saturday looked as though the speed map worked in our favour,” he said.
“So they came here today and were rewarded by winning some handy prize money in a Saturday race with this mare, which is always consistent, but it’s probably the icing on the cake for her to win a race like this on a Group 1 day.”
Two races later in the $150,000 BD Hoof Hustle Handicap, Coffey was back for race two, win two and a lot of “get out of my way”.
Again carrying the number 11 saddlecloth and again riding one of the long shots in the race and again, in classic Coffey, surging in the shadows of the post with Garachico.
A horse which had managed to win just one of its first 23 starts but has now gone back to back for trainer Dominic Sutton.
Coffey had raced midfield for most of the 2000m trip but as the big guns unleashed 200m out, the ever patient Swan Hill rider finally got the gap he was looking for and swept past them all.
He said while the horse really wanted the win, in the end he had been more than relieved he got there.
“At about the 200m mark I thought I just had to get a bit of clear room and he would win, but when there wasn’t much in it between me and Zac Spain on the second placegetter Grand Pierro I had a bit of a panic attack,” Coffey admitted.
“Because the stewards and trainer had allowed me to make the ride 1kg over the weight and we all know what happens when you run second doing that – you’re the one who hangs,” he laughed.
“So I think the ride I gave it, maybe I was worth the kilo over.”
In the $200,000 Group 3 Race-Tech JRA Plate over 1600m it was a bit of Caulfield déjà vu all over again as Coffey took his Caulfield Cup superstar Duke De Sessa to success again.
Except this time there was no careering away miles from the finish.
Instead Coffey and Co were fighting hard down the straight to catch the leaders.
It was a stunning first up run from the 2024 Caulfield Cup winner – and another stunning race by Coffey.
And it was clear punters had not learnt their lessons – the six-year-old gelding was again one of the longest shots in the field, taking his career earnings to just shy of $4 million.
While not conceding he saw the win as a surprise, Coffey did explain “you know good horses are always going to run well”.
“But today he did have a lot against him, and I pulled him out at the top of the straight when I got the run and he pinned his ears back and found plenty,” he said.
“And when they do what he does, it makes my job pretty easy.
“So he’s just getting better the longer Ciaron (Maher) and the team have him and even though it was a good race, a group race, they said don’t panic too much, just have him running well as it’s our job to have him right in a few runs when the tracks are a bit softer in Sydney.
“Well it makes me pretty excited to see how much more he improves and how he competes when he gets up there.”
If three wins from three starts was a bit of a dream for Coffey, taking that high into the only race of the day where he had been handed a very, very warm favourite as opposed to three longshots, was a serious step up.
Arabian Summer was making her first appearance in Victoria since heading north as a two-year-old (she turns four in five months) and has been an ultra-successful filly everywhere she goes.
But now Coffey also had a target on his back in a field of 11 in another Group 3, this time the $200,000 Peter Like Grand Stakes over 1100m.
A scramble leaving no room for error and no time to change your mind.
Pushed to the middle of the track in the run home, it looked as though Tobeornottobe would be the one to win.
But Coffey was winding up his rising star and with a bob of the head on the line survived an unnecessary photo to win by a head.
Completing a day no-one, least of all Coffey, expected.
Four rides, four wins, in races worth a combined $680,000.
“This feels great, and to win on two horses which have been brilliant to me in the past 12 months (Duke De Sessa and Arabian Summer) is something,” Coffey said post-race.
“Obviously to have won the Caulfield Cup on Duke De Sessa was something, but this horse, Arabian Summer, is not far behind that.
“She has also taken me on a great ride you know, and I have flown all around Australia riding her and was able to partner her in some nice two-year-old races and now we are doing that a bit older at three.
“This is what the game is about, finding horses like her and if she isn’t the best horse on course here today, I’ll tell you what, she will be the one which tries the hardest.”
