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| Staff Writer |
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Tamworth is known for its annual country music festival, but it is also where trainer Cody Morgan has his training base as he looks to have an impact on the Australian Spring Carnival with Country Championships runner-up Talbragar. Scott Williams of the Tatts Hotel Inverell Syndicate have selected the Snitzel colt for their slot. The 6YO gelding will be making his second Kosciuszko attempt.
But Morgan’s journey with horses began sixty kilometers in his hometown Quirindi.
“I was actually born into a rodeo background, more so than horse racing,” said Morgan in an exclusive interview with Ten Furlongs Magazine.
“My dad is a ten times Australian champion riding the bucking horses, and then my brother's a two- or three-times Australian champion.
“He's actually leading it this year and I always say I'm the only one in the family that hasn't won an Australian title in the rodeo.
“We grew up doing that and I made the transition a lot easier once I was quite small and a family friend sort of suggested at a young age, I should do that.
“I was probably 13 or 14 and he said you know you should be a jockey.
“I remember the famous one line he said to me ‘You could leave school and earn lots of money” - I thought, where do I sign up?”
Morgan left school quite young to pursue a career in the saddle beginning as an apprentice to Craig Martin where he would outride his country claim.
He would also ride for Tony McEvoy at the great Lindsay Park in the Barossa Valley, given the opportunity to partner with the gelded son of Rubiton, Fields of Omagh.
“I always knew that I was potentially going to get too big down the track, even though I was only small when I started,” he recounts.
“I had probably 1500 race rides and rode around 150 winners in three years.
“The transition from jockey to training was fairly straightforward because I'd already been a jockey.”
Morgan would gain his training licence in 2008 after making the decision to take that route post his time in the saddle.
“After I stopped being a jockey, I just continued to work for other trainers and learn and ride track work still as a way of an income,” he said.
“You sort of start out training one or two and then it gets to six and then gets to 12 and we're up around sort of 50 horses now.”
Full Speed Ahead To The Everest Raceday
From the stable, the horse of the moment is Talbragar. The Everest raceday is a familiar event, with the
the gelded son of Snitzel being pointed at a second Kosciuszko run. He has won five of his seven starts till date.
“He's a very well-bred type and is out of a mare that won the Golden Slipper (Overreach) and then being by Snitzel, he's just incredibly well-bred,” Morgan said.
“He was quite naughty as a young horse, and he started out in Sydney before he found his way to Kody Nestor.
“He's quite a difficult horse and that's why he's so lightly raced.
“He probably would have had double that amount of starts, but he's just always been a difficult horse to ride track work and that's sort of why he's been so lightly raced.
“Kody had him for one start and then he gave training away to actually go back to being a jockey.
“Talbragar then came into our stable and he's performed well, and this will be his second year in the Kosciuszko.”
He has currently been spelt for 22 weeks after finishing second in the Country Championships final.
“It was a really good effort, in that final,” the trainer said.
“He was caught wide in that race when he ran second, and I think he was sort of three wide the whole way.
“James McDonald rode him, and it was a really heavy track, and it was a brave performance for him.
“He left it all out on the track that day and he needed a good break after it and that's what was done.”
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Last year he came off a 23-week spell before his Sydney Spring Carnival campaign where he had two starts for that prep. He won a class 2 over the 1000m at Tamworth by close to two lengths with the handy hoop and his former trainer Kody Nestor onboard.
He had two trials before lining up in last year’s Kosciuszko, where he finished 10th from a field of 14.
With a similar prep as last year leading into the A$2 million feature at Randwick, Zac Purton has been booked for the ride after another huge season at the top of the Hong Kong jockeys premiership.
As a trainer, Morgan takes great pride in his reputation of getting the best from every horse in his stable and ensuring each is placed in a race best suited to that particular horse. Morgan holds a 20% strike rate over the past decade in winners and he commented on the mantra and why he felt it was so important to every facet of the business.
“From the very beginning, I always wanted to try and have a really good strike rate, “he said.
“Don't take them to the races unless you think that they can go there and be pretty close to winning.
“I obviously train a lot for Australian Bloodstock who have won two Melbourne Cups over the last three or four.
“With them, Luke Murrell who is one of the owners of Australian Bloodstock, he still tells me the story. He said, ‘Look I didn't know you at all and I literally only rang you because of your strike rate’.
“It's your shop window to where people look and see your stats and if you run them all the time in races they can't win, well you're probably not standing out from the rest.”
“Purton is booked to ride him and he's unbeaten first up so we're going to try and go into the race first up in Sydney and I'm really looking forward to it,” Morgan said confidently.
“He's very good fresh.
“Other horses, most of the time you would definitely want to run them before a race like that, but he's quite unique in that sense.
“He will probably just have two or three runs this season.
“He doesn't have deep preparations as he doesn't cope with it well.
“He'll look to be racing in Sydney predominantly this preparation.”
With a stable of fifty, Morgan has several other stars in his radar including Broken Hill who has also been selected to run in the Kosciuszko, making it two confirmed runners in the A$2 million spectacle.
“He has had three starts for our stable and he's won all three.
“We are looking forward to getting him down to Sydney in a few weeks’ time,” said Morgan.
Broken Hill is a 5YO gelded son of Lonhro and he joined the Morgan stable in June last year before heading for a 27-week spell.
Another stablemate of Morgan’s that has caught the attention of the industry and fans is Casino Lord. The experienced handler hopes to get 6YO gelded son of Casino Prince into the 2023 running of the Kosciuszko as well.
“He's won half a dozen races and has run in two Group Two races in Sydney.
“We did that to showcase him in the Kosciuszko hopefully.
“He's not in the field as of yet, but with a month to go, he can still get into the field if other horses pull out or a slot holder picks him up.
He came off a 19-week spell and finished second last from a field of eight in a Group Three, with his last win in February at Quirindi where he finished in a tight 0.2 length finish in front of Moetta and Bullinachinashop.
“That was outstanding. That was a really good win that day. He was not entitled to win from where he was, but he's got a great turn of foot and he got to the line very well,” Morgan admits
“He's probably more of a working-class horse and quite different to Talbragar.
“He is not really bred to the eyeballs or anything like that, but he just tries really hard.
“He's a horse that'll perform in Sydney as well over probably the back end, maybe not over Everest day, but later in the carnival he'll continue to race in Sydney.
“He got beat four lengths by some of our best sprinters in Australia, so he's not a long way off of where he needs to be.
“He's already had the two starts in Sydney already, but he'll probably go back to Randwick once again, probably the first week of November and race down there.”
“We also have a horse called Le Melody who won in Brisbane recently.
“She's got a great win record as well, six wins and two placings from 12 starts.”
She is a 5YO mare by Your Song and out of Le Sillage who has been with the Morgan stable since the very start debuting on January 17 last year.
“Ezekiel is also handy, and he will run in Sydney very soon.”
With a 15-year career as a trainer, Morgan has prepared 272 winners with his first coming with Course in 2008. He has seen runners across the country and banked over A7.3 million in prize money but with a hunger to keep seeing winners, he would love to see them on a global scale.
“Every year I've always watched the Dubai Racing Carnival and my goal would be to one day compete and run in the sprint race,” he said.
“Obviously, we've had Australian horses go there and do really well like Buffering and it looks amazing over there.
“That is definitely a goal to see a runner in that race.”
Morgan continued to say that he hoped Talbragar would be the horse he hopes to watch coming down the Meydan straight in the Gr.1 Al Quoz Sprint.
By Rowan Anderson