Harry Coffey is in a race against time to ride one of the Melbourne Cup fancies after a race fall at Flemington on Saturday.
Coffey has been booked to ride Shockletz, the $10 third favourite for the 3200m cup, since she took victory in ballot-free lead-up race The Archer almost two months ago.
But the 31-year-old father of two fell from his mount, Pondalowie, in the Group 1 Empire Rose Stakes on the weekend after she clipped heels and he was catapulted skywards.
Coffey, who won the 2024 Caulfield Cup for Shockletz’s trainer Ciaron Maher aboard Duke De Sessa, rose to his feet and walked back to the mounting yard but was cradling his arm.
Pondalowie was captured by the clerk of the course and cleared of any injury and Coffey participated in a stewards’ inquiry before attending hospital.
“It was established that when the tempo quickened, Pondalowie, despite the efforts of Coffey, shifted in slightly when laying in, resulting in Pondalowie clipping the heels of Cilacap and falling,” the stewards’ report wrote.
Suffering from collarbone pain, Coffey on Sunday underwent a procedure at Melbourne’s Epworth Hospital.
The Maher stable are in a holding pattern awaiting a doctors’ result.
“We’ll give Harry every opportunity and if he can’t do it, we’ll find someone else,” Maher said at the Melbourne Cup barrier draw, where Shockletz received gate 17.
“It’s a legitimate chance, so anybody would be disappointed if they were riding that horse and they weren’t able to.”
Coffey’s manager Dean Hawkes said no decision had been made as of Sunday,
“He has not been ruled in, he has not been ruled out,” he said.
Because of her win in The Archer, Shockletz has flown under the handicapper’s radar with only 51kg.
“The old saying is you’ve got to beat the handicapper, well, she gets in with no weight, and she flew here last Saturday (when second to Soverato),” Maher said.
“She reminds me of a horse that we had that ran very well called High Emocean. She ran third, had no weight, snuck into the field, and she just gives me that feel.
“She might even be a little bit better than her and with no weight, they can go to a new level.”
The mare’s father, Shocking, was owned by the same group and won the 2009 Melbourne Cup, also with 51kg.
Silver Knight was the last cup winner to sire the race’s victor when his son Black Knight won in 1984. Grand Flaneur, Malua and Comedy King are the other winners to produce a Melbourne Cup champion.
Meanwhile, Sam Clipperton will stage a cowboy comeback when he rides Juja Kibo ($11) in the Group 1 $10 million feature.
Clipperton hung up the irons in December 2024, a year after landing The Everest with Think About It.
He then moved to the Hunter Valley, barking on a new career.
“I was doing cowboy stuff there for a few months with a good friend of mine, helping on property, different properties, doing mustering jobs, all that sort of stuff,” Clipperton said.
“Then I went and worked at a stock agency in Singleton, selling rural property and cattle. It was really good.
“It was different in terms of I knew who Sam Clipperton the jockey was for 16 years but stepping out into the workforce, so to speak, geez it was humbling.”
By this time last year, he was back in the saddle and on a Thursday afternoon at Hawkesbury, he first rode Juja Kibo.
“They’ve stuck with me ever since,” Clipperton said.
“I was then able to ride him in the Kingston Town and then able to ride him in the Metropolitan, which he won.
“Then I asked to come down and ride him in the Moonee Valley Cup, and they could have had anyone they wanted on him, to be honest, but they stuck with me and stuck solid.
“I think he’ll run the race of his life.”
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