By Duane Ranger (courtesy of Redcliffe Paceway)
The highly-regarded and popular harness racing Coy family won yet another race at Redcliffe Paceway this week – thanks largely to grandfather of 22, Jeffrey Coy.
Jade’s Diamond’s second career win in nine starts in race two on Thursday (September 19) came about largely through the 69-year-old farmer, and his extended family who wanted to race a pacer.
“We were all at the Warwick trots one day watching the horses run around on the grass and my kids said to me that they would love to own a race-horse. Then Barton Cockburn rang me one night in late 2017, and put me onto a six-win Real Desire brown mare named Merrylands Miss.
“She was bred (2010) and raced in New South Wales before she ended her career in Queensland in November 2017. I asked the kids if they were keen to buy her as a broodmare and they all agreed,” Coy said.
“We bought Merrylands Miss as a racing proposition and she won two races for us before becoming a broodmare,” he added.
Jade’s Diamond was born on November 10, 2018, and is the first foal out of Merrylands Miss. We also bred an Ohoka Punter weanling colt, who turns one in January. The jury is still out on whether we breed again. It’s not the same game as what it once was,” the Freestone farmer said.
Freestone is 16km north-east of Warwick, where Coy was raised and educated. It is also the Southern Downs town where his famous father, Doug, trained the brilliant and multiple Group One-winning pacer of 1960s – Stormy Water, among others.
Trained by Coy’s nephew Dayl March at Warwick, and driven by Shane Graham, Jades Diamond, drew the awkward eight draw and landed the one-one early before she was sent to the front by Graham after 300 metres.
Then it was a case of catch me if you can. They couldn’t. Jades Diamond set all the pace winning ridiculously easy by an increasing 21 metres. The Heston Blue Chip mare was the $1.75 favourite.
The brown 5-year-old is owned and was bred by Coy and his wife Diane of 47 years; his daughter, Jodie and her husband Ricky; son Darren and his wife Sara; daughter, Angela; and son, Scott and his wife, Emily.
He said he did a bit of homework when naming Jades Diamond.
“I looked back at the pedigrees and saw ‘Diamond’ appear three times in the maternal line and also the paternal side too. Then I used the family’s initials to come up with ‘Jades’.
The ‘J’ stands for Jeffrey and Jodie. The ‘A’ is Angela. The ‘D’ is Darren and Diane; the ‘E’ is Emily; and the ‘S’ stands for Sara and Scott,” he explained.
But the owner of ‘Coy’s Quality Hay and Chaff Supplies’, was quick to deflect most of the praise to his younger brother, Neil, and trainer, March.
“Neil was the one who has to take most of the credit before Dayl got him – after he trained her for her first seven starts. He has to take most of the credit because he selected the stallion, and then got her in foal before doing all the ground-work with Jades Diamond.
“Then Dayl took over in August 2024 this year she had been off the scene for two years with leg problems. That was her third start for Dayl on Wednesday, and he’s done a fine job with her too,” Junabee-born Coy said.
The youngest of Doug and Beryl Coy’s children, (after Mavis March, Shirley Millard, and Jeffrey), is also a better than average horseman.
Neil Coy’s purple, gold stars with the striped sleeved-silks won the GROUP ONE $100,000 Queensland Pacing Championship with Peter Santos at Albion Park on November 1, 1997. He also drove and owned that talented son of Vanston Hanover.
As for Jeff Coy, he said he had trained and driven “dozens” of winners, but dairy farming (22 years) and then hay bailing for the last 13 years had consumed most of his time.
“The game isn’t the same as it used to be. They (administration and the public) were much more friendly in the old days. Every time they shut down a track they lost a heap of supporters. “It’s a five-hour return trip to Brisbane, so the travelling also took its toll. It’s just a bloody shame the local tracks aren’t operating harness racing anymore.”
I’ve always been a farmer, who trained a bit. I got into it straight from school with Dad and Uncle Fred, but then gave it away in my 30s. I did make a comeback later on but my business got the better of me, but I’ll never forget my first training and driving victories,” he said.
That was at the Toowoomba Showgrounds when Coy was just a teenager. That day he drove and conditioned Fancy Pride to victory.
He rated Jades Diamond in the top four or five horses he had been associated with, but fully owned Cassiopia when that 1981 Tarport Low mare won the now named Ladyship Stakes at Harold Park in 1988.
“I don’t think she’s going to be a star, but Neil and Dayl have done a great job with her, just getting her back to the races. I was going to train her but because of her issues I thought it best that my nephew train her because he has a swimming facility.
“She’s a handy horse but very head-strong. She was fighting Shane until he got to the lead with her, and then she relaxed and settled well. You never know what the future goes but she went 158 the other day and they go 54 and 53 at Albion Park, so she has got some improving to do. We just hope her tendon issues are behind her,” Coy said.
It was just Jades Diamond’s second start this year, and ninth overall, due to front tendon problems. She also won at “The Triangle’ for Neil Coy and Graham on October 13, 2022 when she was victorious by 7.4 metres. That day she clocked a 1.59.6 mile-rate, which was 0.9 of a second quicker than Wednesday’s personal best of 1:58.7.
With equine blood running through his veins, what was it like growing up with a famous Dad and a champion racehorse in Stormy Water?
“They were both champions. I wasn’t old enough to drive Stormy Water on race-day, but I got behind him in trackwork, and wow could he go when you flicked the switch. He was at ‘the top of the tree.’
“In saying that he only ever did what he had to in trackwork. He would beat them by the barest of margins, but come race-night, the big crowds, and the floodlights, he found another gear. He was like a Mercedes.
“As for Dad (Doug) he was a champion too. He was a reserved man, who was as honest as the day is long. He never earned a cent that wasn’t due to him. He was a great father, and even though he passed away in June 2020, it seems like just yesterday when we were farming and working horses together,” Coy said.
“An inspirational man I was proud to call Dad,” he added.
Coy said his father was also close mates with former ‘National trot Guide’ journalist, Bill Eacott.
“Bill was also a poet, and wrote a poem about Dad when he was involved in a race fall. Here is a copy of that poem:”
Douglas was a reinsman he thundered down the straight.
Along there at the winning post he was seldom late.
He won his races far and wide never in disgrace.
Out in front or in behind he always went the pace.
Now Ray Lauro was a cunning nag who graced the stable yard.
But when he fell last Saturday Doug found the track so hard.
A piercing scream was heard from all:
“Oh Douglas are you hurt? Then get up at once,” Beryl said.
“Out of that ruddy dirt”.
Now Douglas’s reply was awful rude at Beryl he did stare.
“I heard the angels singing when I was in the air.
Now what a darling wife you are to roar at me like that
Come and help me fill the hole where my body sat.”
For the record Coy has 16 grand-children and six step-grandchildren. He’s still waiting to become a Great-Grandad.
Footnote: Warwick is a rural town of 12,294 and locality in southeast Queensland, Australia, lying 130 and 194km south-west of Brisbane and Redcliffe Paceway (2.5 hours). It is the Administrative Centre of the Southern Downs Region local government area. The surrounding Darling Downs have fostered a strong agricultural industry for which Warwick, together with the larger city of Toowoomba, serve as convenient service centres. Freestone is 16km north-west of Warwick.
A previous story I wrote on the legend Doug Coy and his son Neil:
