“When he set out to be a jockey, when he was 15 years old, the stewards were not going to let him ride,” Coffey said. “We got told that with his sickness that he shouldn’t be riding in races.
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“He overcame that. He just kept asking, ringing every fortnight. I said to them, ‘just let him ride at Manangatang and Balranald and Wycheproof, and we will go from there’. And he has turned into a champion.”
Coffey said his wife, Maree, couldn’t watch the start of the cup because she was too nervous, but he began to think the six-year-old gelding had a chance when it started to shorten in the betting.
“I was rapt to see that,” he said. “And I was watching (during the race) where that bloke from overseas was, Joao Moreira. He gets tangled up in big races. It wasn’t his day again.
“It is how you win races – bounce out, let someone come around you, then have him turned off, then turn him back on. They are the rides that win them.”
Coffey took his son on as an apprentice after they convinced stewards to grant him a jockey’s licence, and they had an unforgettable day out at Wycheproof races on Caulfield Cup day in 2016, combining to win five of the seven races. His son rode a sixth winner for another trainer.
Austy and Harry Coffey with winner’s grins at the weekend.Credit: Racing Photos via Getty Images
“There is a lot behind teaching kids how to ride in races. A lot of it is, let them have 50 rides and then start teaching them, you know,” Coffey said.
“When he was a tiny little kid in the truck, he’d say at night coming home, the old truck would be banging away, and he’d say to me, ‘how come that bloke did that (during a race), why would he have to do that?’.
“The less you rush and hurry, the better you will go. It all adds up with his riding now. He’s got a lot of patience, and he’s got good timing, I reckon. (Damien) Oliver said that; ‘he’s the sort of bloke who doesn’t go down with the pressure’.”
Like any parents, the Coffeys made sacrifices to ensure their son could fulfil his riding commitments. It was nothing to have three drivers across two days, travelling from Horsham on a Friday morning to Moonee Valley that night to Morphettville in Adelaide the following day.
Champion jockey Harry Coffey, who has cystic fibrosis, photographed as a child in 2008 getting treatment and with his mum Maree.Credit: John Woudstra
“Every night win, lose or draw we still have a talk on the phone and I tell him, or go through his rides, and say, ‘gee you were lucky in that race, or you know’, we go through things every day together,” Coffey said.
Improved medication has meant a huge leap in the jockey’s quality of life – a vast difference from the constant stays in hospital during his youth as his weakened immune system needed time to reboot.
”It’s only the last three years he has been on the whizz-bang stuff,” his father said.
Coffey has nothing but admiration for his son. He talks about Harry’s wife, Tayla – “she’s a ripper” – his “great little kid” Thomas and their “great little property” at Swan Hill.
Harry Coffey rides Duke De Sessa to victory and celebrates after passing the post.Credit: Vince Caligiuri/Getty Images
And despite what people might think, he does not regret being in Swan Hill instead of Caulfield for his son’s biggest day.
“Naturally, after it, you wished you were there for sure, but you sort of get tangled up that much you think you should stay away so it makes the horse go better. There’s a bit of that involved, too, don’t worry about that,” Coffey said.
Harry Coffey savours winning the 2024 Caulfield Cup.Credit: Getty Images
“Sometimes you feel like the old man is better off out of the road a bit, too, you know. You just feel like you should step back out of the road – it is a good idea sometimes.”
The father and son were reunited again at Sunday’s Echuca races.
“I said to him last night, ‘we will get someone to ride mine, have the day off and come home to your wife and your boy’, and he said, ‘no, I’ll come and ride yours, and we’ll go again’,” his father said.
“He’s tough, determined bastard. He broke his wrist here at the June carnival on the Saturday, and he thought he could win the Swan Hill Cup on the Sunday, and he had black insulation tape around his wrist. He rode and finished second.”
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His son’s sheer joy on Saturday afternoon is something Austy will always savour.
“If you had a little kid in hospital, you’d like him to be watching that, wouldn’t you,” Coffey said.
“He never forgets where he is from or how good of a job his mum has done with him, keeping him alive.”
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