Emerging sprint star Private Harry has stepped up again in his first Group 1 test in a dream result for trainer Nathan Doyle and jockey Ashley Morgan in The Galaxy at Rosehill.
Private Harry had won all four of his starts in convincing fashion, including the $3 million Sunlight 3YO Plate slot race at the Sunshine Coast in January, before Doyle pinpointed Saturday’s Galaxy for the three-year-old colt’s first Group 1 assignment.
Sent out the $3.50 betting apps favourite in the 1100m feature, Private Harry sat just behind the two leaders before moving up strongly early in the home straight to issue his challenge.
He got the better of last year’s third placegetter Front Page over the final 200m, beating the Matthew Dale-trained sprinter by three-quarters of a length with a half-neck back to Uncommon James in third.
“I’m shaking,” Newcastle-based trainer Doyle said after claiming his first Group 1.
“I dreamed of this as a kid, all I wanted to do was train horses.”
“To win a Group 1, with Ash, the staff, Kurrinda (Bloodstock), it means so much. I can’t stop shaking.”
After Private Harry powered to victory on the Sunshine Coast in January, Doyle said he planned back from The Galaxy and the unbeaten colt went into Saturday’s feature sprint having won two barrier trials leading in.
“You’re still at the stables at 9 o’clock at night just checking that he’s OK. You just don’t want anything to go wrong,” Doyle said.
“You get these opportunities with these horses, and they’re once in a lifetime.”
“I’m just glad it’s all panned out.”
“I said we were only scratching the surface with him, and we still are.”
Doyle plans to run the unbeaten Private Harry in the Group 1 TJ Smith Stakes (1200m) at Randwick in two weeks while The Everest later in the year in spring is also in the trainer’s sights with his stable star.
“Ka Ying who?” Doyle quipped, when asked about a changing of the guard in the Australian sprinting ranks, in reference to star Hong Kong sprinter Ka Ying Rising who is the current Everest favourite.
“No, this is where you want to be, taking on the big boys and I think he deserves his opportunity,” Doyle said.
“So he’ll go to the TJ in a couple of weeks and I’d say he’ll be back in the paddock and hopefully go to an Everest.”
Doyle was also thrilled to achieve the Group 1 success in combination with Welsh-born jockey Morgan who has worked his way up in Australian racing, largely through the country and provincial circuit, to achieve his biggest win on Private Harry.
“We’ve come a long way from going to Sky 2 and Non-Tabs (meetings) trying to get winners when we first started,” Doyle said of his association with Morgan.
“To stick with him and see where he has ended up, Australia’s home to him now and we’re his family.”
Morgan has ridden Private Harry is all of his starts and the jockey, who rose in the irons as he crossed the line, said it was an “amazing feeling” to win a Group 1.
“As a youngster when I was 14 riding work, I thought it will happen for me straight away,” Morgan said.
“I’m 34 and until this horse came along it didn’t look like it was in sight. So I’m so grateful for everyone in the team, the horse. Wow.”
