UNBEATEN Newcastle colt Private Harry will have his final gallop at home on Tuesday morning before heading north for the biggest assignment of his brief career.
Trainer Nathan Doyle’s exciting young sprinter is one of 12 three-year-olds to have gained a start in a new slot race, the $3m TAB Magic Millions Sunlight Stakes (1100m), at the Gold Coast on Saturday.
Private Harry is currently $6 third favorite behind Golden Slipper Stakes winner Lady Of Camelot ($2.40) and Magic Millions National 2YO Classic winner Arabian Summer ($5).
“Private Harry is as good as Nathan can get him,” Doyle’s racing manager David Dyson said this morning.
“He worked the colt last Friday morning with stablemate and last start Royal Randwick runner-up Dalaalaat, and will gallop him again on the grass on Tuesday morning.
“Then he will be floated to the Gold Coast on Wednesday night with stablemate Wooloowin, who will also race there on Saturday.
“Ash Morgan rode Private Harry in his gallop last Friday, and will be there again to work him on Tuesday morning.”
Morgan has been aboard the colt in all three wins; the first two at Newcastle (900m) on November 2 and Hawkesbury (1100m) on November 21 before a 3YO Benchmark 72 Handicap (1200m) at Rosehill Gardens on December 7.
He will continue his association with Private Harry at the Gold Coast, whilst Jason Collett has been booked for Wooloowin in the Magic Millions Rising Stars Class 4 Plate (1300m) for three-year-old fillies and four-year-old mares.
The well-named four-year-old daughter of Capitalist is the third foal of the now deceased God’s Own mare Brook Road, who was trained for all but the first five of her 28-start career at Newcastle by Kris Lees, who won three races with her, including a Listed 1200m event against her own sex at Doomben in 2014, defeating Tinto, who earlier that year had won the Group 1 Queensland Oaks at Eagle Farm.
Brook Road is the name of a street in the Brisbane suburb of Wooloowin, hence the mare’s name.
Wooloowin has won three of her six starts, including a first-up city victory over 1150m on the Kensington track in late October.
She was an $80,000 buy at the 2022 Magic Millions yearling sale at the Gold Coast, whereas Private Harry was an Inglis Classic yearling sale product last year and cost $115,000.
The Sunlight is an open slot race for all three-year-olds, and not restricted to Magic Millions sales graduates.
Whilst Doyle will have both Private Harry and Wooloowin lining up on the opening day of the MM carnival, he won’t have a runner in the $3m MM 2YO Classic (1200m) a week later.
He had hoped to earn sufficient prizemoney with debut Breeders’ Plate fourth placegetter Hidden Motive to secure a start, but the Capitalist youngster went shin sore after finishing second in an 800m trial for two-year-olds on the Beaumont track on December 4 and has been spelled.
. Local trainers, father and son Rob and Luke Price and Ross McConville, were winners at their home track meeting at Kembla Grange yesterday.
Team Price secured an immediate return on the $75,000 outlaid for former Godolphin gelding Mogwai when he won the Provincial Benchmark 68 Handicap (1300m) at his first start for them.
The four-year-old started at $4.80 and did a terrific job under his 61kg topweight to lead throughout at his first outing since June.
Mogwai (Keagan Latham) defeated fellow Kembla Grange trainer Theresa Bateup’s Tartana ($5.50) and Wyong trainer Sara Ryan’s $2.90 favorite So Good So Cool.
Ryan had won the previous race, the Midway Maiden Plate (1000m) with lightly-raced four-year-old The Pacific ($4.20), ridden by apprentice Braith Nock.
The $375,000 2022 Gold Coast yearling sale purchase was having only his fourth start, and second this preparation.
McConville won the Class 1 Handicap (1300m) with topweight C’mon Mate ($11), who overcame an awkward start and trouble 200m later to post his second success.
C’mon Mate, who has been placed on 12 occasions, was bred by the late Ross Williams, who raced his horses under the ‘Superhorse’ banner.
After he passed away in August 2021, C’mon Mate was sold to stable client Andrew Kyriacou and his syndicate.
C’mon Mate is the only foal of the unraced Shellscrape mare Shellene, who died only a few days after giving birth to him in October 2019.
Story John Curtis, December 29, 2024 - Pics Bradley Photos
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