Private Harry
Excluding his first barrier trial, on a heavy track as a January two-year-old, Private Harry (Harry Angel) has won everything he’s contested.
The beautifully coloured bay had four more trials before he raced, at Gosford, Beaumont, Muswellbrook and Newcastle. Won them all, by between 1.7 and 4.6 lengths.
He had his race debut as a November three-year-old in a Newcastle Super Maiden over 900 metres and won that by 3.44 lengths, at $1.55. After that, a 2.5 per cent share in him sold for $25,250, valuing the maiden winner at a tick over $1 million.
Private Harry won his second start at Hawkesbury as a $1.40 shot by 7.06 lengths – no doubt to the pain of the seller of that 2.5 per cent – then scored in town in a Rosehill Benchmark 72 over 1200 metres, by more than a length as a $2.10 favourite.
And finally, last Saturday at the Sunshine Coast, this exciting colt won the inaugural edition of $3 million slot race The Sunlight (1100m), beating Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Lady Of Camelot (Written Tycoon), no less, with the exceptional Arabian Summer (Too Darn Hot) third. This time, given the sharp rise in class, he was only a $5 second elect, but he sat on the pace and won as he pleased by 2.43 lengths.
So it’s clear by now he’s a horse with a big future. But most other things about him have been small, and not just his starting price.
Private Harry is prepared by up-and-coming trainer Nathan Doyle, who has a small-ish team of 69 horses on his books at his Newcastle stable.
He’s been ridden in all of his races and trials by Welsh expat Ash Morgan, who has 610 career wins to his name, but only broke through for his first black type success three days before The Sunlight, and that in Listed class in the Canterbury Sprint (1200m) on New Year’s Day, on Iowna Merc (Winning Rupert).
His ownership group is headed by boutique syndicator Kurrinda Bloodstock, whose director Sean Driver bought him for $115,000 from Inglis Classic in 2023.
And Private Harry was bred by Rheinwood Pastoral, the boutique operation which was one of the first to set up in NSW’s Southern Highlands in the early 1990s.
“It’s such a great story to have a horse like this, with an up-and-coming trainer, an up-and -coming jockey, and a small, family-run syndicator, win a race with a horse bred by a family-run farm,” says Kirsty Willis, who manages Rheinwood for her parents Ray and Marilyn.
“It’s one for the battlers, I guess.”
Private Harry stems from a very Rheinwood story.
Around 1990, Ray Willis bought the mare Briscay (Marscay). She’d won only once from 11 starts, but was three times city-placed, and provided a huge early boost for the farm.
In 1991, Willis put her to triple Group 1 winner Myocard (Ivory Hunter) and the result was Arkady, the gelding who in a golden autumn of 1997 won four on the trot, including the rare back-to-back double of the Queanbeyan Cup (2000m) and the Ranvet Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m).
The John Morish-trained gelding then went within a nose of another top tier success when edged out by the great Octagonal (Zabeel) in the Tancred Stakes (Gr 1, 2400m).
The then four-year-old Arkady had won seven of 12 and could have been anything, but then spent two years on the sidelines and didn’t win again in 11 more starts. He did, however, run fourth in the 1999 George Main Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m), second in the Canberra Cup (Listed, 2000m) and fourth in the Hotham Handicap (Gr 2, 2500m), and would go down as Myocard’s only top-level winner.
Briscay threw not much else amid ten named foals, but for her seventh she had a shot at the big time, going for her one cover from the mighty Danehill (Danzig). That didn’t immediately work wonders, with the filly Pilgrim winning at Hawkesbury and Bathurst, but played a key role in the creation of our budding sensation of today, Private Harry.
Pilgrim produced plenty after her racetrack days, with 15 named foals. The highlights were the Group 3-placed Snipzu (Snippetson) and Listed-placed Paredo (Better Than Ready), but right in the middle came Happy Pilgrim (Congrats).
This mare won at the Sapphire Coast, Leeton and Wagga, but when the Willis family spied her in the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale of 2018, they moved swiftly to buy her, in tandem with agent Bill Mitchell, for $75,000.
“Having owned Briscay and having bred Arkady out of her, when we saw one of her granddaughters coming through the sale, we were pretty keen,” Kirsty Willis says. “The mare market was very strong, so we were happy with that price.”
Happy Pilgrim was carrying her first foal, by Nicconi (Bianconi). Sold as a weanling by Rheinwood for $15,000, then as a yearling by Willow Dale Farm for $62,500 at Inglis Premier, he became First Crusade. He didn’t quite shoot the lights out but provided a heart-warming story for Rheinwood, eventually winning four races in Darwin.
“He was the first horse for a young trainer named Chloe Baxter, who bought him online for not a lot [$10,000] to kick off her career,” Willis says. “She got in contact with me and was over the moon when he won those races for her, so that was lovely.”
For their first mating for Happy Pilgrim, Rheinwood selected Coolmore shuttler Caravaggio (Scat Daddy), in what transpired as his only Australian season. This yielded Contarelli, a $25,000 yearling who’s been placed twice in country NSW.
Third-up, Happy Pilgrim went to Santos (I Am Invincible), then in his first season at Aquis Farm, for a better result in Lucky Lily, sold at Inglis Classic for $40,000, with her West Australian-based buyer Trevor Scott liking the way she moved when watching her videos.
Lucky Lily has won three of ten, first at Bunbury then twice in a row at Kalgoorlie in her latest runs last spring. While the locations sound modest, her owners feel she’ll shape up as a worthy half-sister to Private Harry.
“Trevor believes she’ll be stakes class, but they moved her to Kalgoorlie temporarily because there was a run of wet tracks in Perth,” Willis says.
Finally, in 2020, Rheinwood sent Happy Pilgrim to Harry Angel (Dark Angel), then in his second season of shuttling from Europe for Darley.
“From the first time I saw Harry Angel at Darley’s stallion parade, I was just really taken by him,” Willis says.
“He looked like an overseas horse who would work here. Just with his athleticism, and that he had so much quality about him, he looked like a horse who would work with our Danehill line mares, our bigger, coarser heavier mares, given he’s so athletic and has good length and scope about him.”
With Danehill her damsire, Happy Pilgrim went to Harry Angel, and the result is Private Harry.
“We sent one mare to him for his first season but she missed,” Willis says, “but in his second year we sent Happy Pilgrim, and that worked – and worked very well by the look of it. It was a great physical match-up, because she’s a very strong mare with really powerful hindquarters, and Harry Angel is such an athletic and beautiful horse.
“Happy Pilgrim is such a beautiful mare, a great mum with the most wonderful nature. She’s the perfect broodmare, really. All her foals are correct and great types, and she looks after them well.”
Private Harry was astutely plucked by Driver at Inglis Classic, who was quickly impressed. A year later, he returned to Classic and bought Private Harry’s half-brother by first-season sire Anders (Not A Single Doubt) from the same breeders, for $100,000. He’s now a two-year-old colt known as Lance Corporal, who recently had his first trial for Doyle.
“One of the reasons Sean loved Private Harry was that he was just a really athletic, beautiful mover,” Willis says, “and as Sean would say, he buys an athlete as opposed to perhaps a horse with a big pedigree.”
Aside from a Group 1 producer as a third dam, that pedigree on Private Harry is indeed another thing about him that’s on the “small” side, though there are a few repetitions to inspire hope.
Influential US mare Somethingroyal (Princequillo) is at 8m, 8m x 6m, 8m – both pairs being her most famous sons Secretariat (Bold Ruler) and Sir Gaylord (Turn-To) respectively.
The greatest blue hen Natalma (Native Dancer) makes seven appearances in the first eight generations and appears well sprinkled. Six are through Northern Dancer (Nearctic) but the other two are via separate daughters in either half in Raise The Standard (Hoist The Flag) and Spring Adieu (Buckpasser).
There’s only one duplication in Private Harry’s first five generations – Mr. Prospector (Raise A Native) at 5m x 4f, the latter in a decent spot as Congrats’s damsire.
Harry Angel, meanwhile, continues on an upward trajectory, reflected in his fee last spring of $38,500 on the back of Tom Kitten, his one Group 1 victor among five southern hemisphere stakes winners.
That fee was up from $33,000 in 2023, and more than double the $16,500 it cost to produce Private Harry, whose $1.2 million payday last Saturday has helped Harry Angel to eighth on the general sires’ table, from a finishing spot of 54th last term, after his second season.
Rheinwood has Private Harry’s half-sister by Captivant (Capitalist) going to next month’s Inglis Classic sale. Happy Pilgrim went for a late cover from Harry Angel in November and missed, but will return to him early next season.
The boutique farm – which has also bred stakes winners including Libertad (Russian Revolution) and Unchain My Heart (Al Maher), and reared dual Group 1 winner Albert The Fat (Magic Albert) – might just have produced its best one yet in Private Harry.
“We’re just thrilled with what he’s doing,” Willis says.
“As a smaller farm, it’s not easy to compete with the bigger operations, but we’ve got an amazing team behind us, headed by our wonderful stud manager Dee Foster.
“Hopefully, we’re starting to see the rewards on the track from the past couple of years of focusing on getting better mares, and mating them correctly to produce quality athletes.”