SEAN DRIVER wasn’t beating around the bush!
He had taken keen notice of the colt from freshman stallion Harry Angel at the 2023 Inglis Classic yearling sale, and quickly made up his mind.
“I looked at him probably four times, and it took only six strides and I knew I wasn’t going home without him,” Driver said.
“There was something about him. He was a standout; very athletic.”
One hundred and fifteen thousand dollars later the colt was his.
“At the time I thought we had paid overs, but I don’t mind taking a punt on first season sires.
“If he had been a son of top sire Snitzel, my guess is he would have brought $800,000.”
Regardless, subsequent events have shown that Driver didn’t pay overs at all.
Newcastle’s exhilarating three-year-old Private Harry is now unbeaten from four starts – the latest a breathtaking victory in the $3m Magic Millions Sunlight Plate (1100m) under lights at the Sunshine Coast on January 4 – with earnings of just over $1.37m, and seemingly much more to come.
The exciting colt has been a scene stealer for Driver and his wife Genevieve and their Kurrinda Bloodstock Syndications business and his trainer Nathan Doyle, who tallies 30 wins this season and is bearing down on a career 300.
Driver is mates with Canberra’s Luke Pepper, who was the third trainer of Private Harry’s dam Happy Pilgrim – and won all three country races with her (at Wagga, Leeton and the Sapphire Coast) in 2017 before she headed off to a breeding career.
Private Harry is Happy Pilgrim’s fourth foal. Such are the vagaries of this thoroughbred breeding game that her first three have not been city winners, and one of them hasn’t won a race.
First Crusade (by Nicconi) has won five races (four of them in Darwin), Contarelli (by Caravaggio), which Doyle trained for three unplaced runs before moving him on, has raced eight times and remains a maiden, and Lucky Lily (by Santos) is a three-times winner in country Western Australia.
Whilst Kurrinda Bloodstock understandably is dining out on Private Harry’s emergence as one of Australia’s most exciting young sprinters, Driver is certainly no fly by nighter.
Racing is virtually all he has known, and he has well and truly done the hard yards.
He hand picks all their horses to be syndicated and helps manage the training and care of them, whilst wife Genevieve is a practising lawyer who handles all in-house legal, owner relationships and overall business management.
The Kurrinda name came from a 670-acre stud property Driver’s late grandfather Ken Silverside owned at Merriwa, which housed three stallions (Free Flyer, Son Of Gildoran and Youthful Legs).
“Pop was an orphan and had service stations as well as the stud,” Hornsby-born Driver said.
“He was a very hard but fair man, and drummed into me his work ethic.
“When I was seven years of age, I started working at either Kurrinda Stud or one of his service stations during school holidays.
“I soon realised that working hard was essential if you wanted to succeed in your business life.
“Pop had his horses with the late Taree trainer Bob Milligan, and at one stage he won 100 races straight for six years in a row.”
One of those horses was the recently deceased son of Free Flyer, Carael Boy (who is buried on Kurrinda’s exclusive 40-acre spelling farm at Fordwich in the Hunter Valley).
Farm manager Shane Freer with Sean Driver
The remarkable war horse raced 86 times for 20 wins and 11 placings, and earned nearly $1m until his retirement in 2008.
His death only a couple of months ago hit Driver hard.
“I helped deliver him one morning at 3am at Merriwa, and so always had a close attachment to him,” he said.
Driver as a 16-year-old was trackside at Broadmeadow when Carael Boy dead-heated with Bart Cummings’ High Cee in the 2005 Group 3 Newcastle Gold Cup.
“Pop and Ken took the owners and trainer’s trophies, and I had the chance to ask Bart questions in the committee room afterwards,” he said.
“I was always wanting to learn more, and Bart was terrific. Very helpful.”
After Silverside’s death, Driver took a sabbatical. He had nothing at all to do with the industry and didn’t even watch a race for two to three years.
“It was an emotional time because we were at the cross roads. We sold up at Merriwa, and all I wanted to keep was Pop’s silks and a horse ring.
“I said to Genevieve one day six or seven years ago that I was ready to get back into racing, and that’s how Kurrinda Bloodstock Syndications was born.
“We started with the purchase of a Onemorenomore filly at Scone for $5000, and racing as One Pound she won four races.
“Now we’ve got more than 50 horses on our books.”
Those horses are spread around trainers including Nathan Doyle, Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, Matt Dale, David Pfieffer, Richard and Will Freedman, Cody Morgan, Tony Gollan, Stu Kendrick and Mitchell Freedman in the three eastern States.
“Obviously racing horses is fun, but it’s also a business,” Driver underlined.
“I won’t hesitate to move a horse from a trainer if they’re not performing.
“Also I don’t get offended if a trainer calls and asks me to move a horse on to somewhere more suitable to its ability.
“We want the best for our owners, the horse and our trainers. We all need results; the overheads are just too high not to get results.”
Whilst Kurrinda’s first horse cost only $5000, one of their recent Magic Millions buys, a Too Darn Hot filly, fetched $420,000 and will join the Waterhouse-Bott team at Royal Randwick.
“I buy solely on type,” Driver said. “We don’t have $1m budgets and the like, and generally our aim is to purchase as low as we can and then get a good result.”
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HOOFNOTE: Private Harry has just enjoyed a fortnight’s break at Kurrinda’s Fordwich property under the watchful eye of farm manager Shane Freer.
“We let him be a horse again running around in a paddock, and now it’s business again.”Private Harry was floated back to Doyle’s Broadmeadow stables yesterday to be prepared for a crack to establish himself at Group 1 level in the $1m The Galaxy (1100m) at Rosehill Gardens on March 22.
And there’s the $20m The Everest (1200m) at Randwick in October also in the offing if he keeps winning.
“We’ve had a lot of offers for him, but he’s not for sale as a racehorse,” Driver said.
Aware of Private Harry’s ability before he raced, Kurrinda went back to the same Inglis Classic sale last year and bought the colt’s half-brother (by Anders) for $100,000.
He will race as Lance Corporal and, whilst spelling at present, the now two-year-old already shows promise.
Story John Curtis, January 21, 2025
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