‘I didn’t have the firepower to match the big boys...’ - Change in approach yields Group 1 glory for Morgan

Cover image courtesy of Michael McInally

Watching Kukeracha (NZ) (Night Of Thunder {Ire}) salute the judge for the first time in over a year would have been more than enough for Morgan at Eagle Farm on Saturday, but coupled with Kovalica’s graduation to Group 1 class and the added bonus of a metropolitan double in Adelaide, Saturday, May 27, 2023 will go down as a memorable afternoon to say the least.

Days like that do not come around often unless you are fortunate enough to be involved with the might of global powerhouses like Godolphin and Coolmore, but such has been Morgan’s success as an owner over the past decade or two, it is far from the first time that he has enjoyed stakes success across multiple states.

“We had a pretty fat day a couple of years ago when Kolding won the inaugural Golden Eagle, Kemalpasa won the Linlithgow S. on Derby Day and we also managed to have a winner at Morphettville, so that day was up there as well,” Morgan recalled.

“Saturday was a great day, particularly being able to land the Group 1 with Kovalica, but equally as satisfying was Kukeracha, who won the same race two years ago.

Gallery: Neville Morgan's Eagle Farm winners on Saturday, May 23, images courtesy of Michael McInally

“Winning the Group 1 at home in Brisbane was pretty special, but they’re great wherever they occur. I’ve got to be honest, they’re great to celebrate at home, but if you said I’d prefer a Queensland Derby over a Cox Plate, that might be stretching it a bit.”

In Kovalica, Morgan might just have the horse required to be competitive in a Cox Plate should he and his fellow connections opt to go down that route in the spring.

There is plenty of water to go under the bridge between now and then, however, and Kovalica’s immediate future most likely belongs in a luscious green paddock.

“I briefly discussed it with Chris yesterday and I imagine he will go to the paddock, then he’ll work out a program in the spring,” Morgan revealed.

“Hopefully he’ll make that progression. Obviously, to get to the levels we hope he can get to, he’s going to have to make some improvement. It would be good if he could measure up at weight for age, because with his handicap rating now it’s going to be really difficult for him to win open company handicaps.

“Races like the Caulfield Cup, they’re an option for us, but I’m hoping he can tick that weight-for-age box. I’d certainly love to win a Cox Plate, but whether he can get to that grade remains to be seen.

“There’s a notion that there’s a changing of the guard now in the weight-for-age races, they’re probably going to be won by horses coming through now like the Proisir filly Prowess, and we can only hope that Kovalica can be one of those as well.”

Changing tack

Kovalica’s emphatic Queensland Derby success made it two wins in the Group 1 feature in the past three years for the Morgan, Chris Waller and James McDonald combination - the trio having landed the spoils with the aforementioned Kukeracha in 2021.

It is a race that epitomises Morgan’s current approach to buying yearlings, but by his own admission, he would likely not have enjoyed anywhere near the level of success he has been afforded over the past decade had it not been for a lightbulb moment many moons ago.

“We’ve had a lot of luck with the Derby, I think we may have placed a couple of years back with a horse called Vilanova, who Chris trained, and we ran third in the Derby last year with a horse called Caboche,” Morgan said.

“They’re the sort of horses that we buy. A long time ago, I worked out that most of the Group 1s in Australia are probably over 1400 metres or further, and I was running around trying to buy sprinters.

“I didn’t have the firepower to match the big boys in the game and I thought I had to change that strategy, so we started looking for more stoutly bred horses. I suppose Sir Pentire and Rangirangdoo were the first of those.”

Both Sir Pentire (NZ) (Pentire {GB}) and dual Group 1 winner Rangirangdoo (NZ) (Pentire {GB}) were bred in New Zealand, and a large proportion of Morgan’s highest-achieving horses since those two trailblazers have lived out their formative years across the Tasman, including the likes of Kermadec (NZ), Kolding (NZ) and Kovalica.

In fact, three of Morgan’s four winners on Saturday were sourced from the New Zealand Bloodstock (NZB) Karaka Yearling Sale, but the leading owner was quick to admit that two of his closest allies are the reason why Karaka has been such a happy hunting ground for him.

“I think it’s the Guy Mulcaster and Chris Waller influence,” he said. “The first horse that I bought myself directly from New Zealand was Rangirangdoo.

“I’d had a little bit of luck with a horse called Sir Pentire in Melbourne, Robbie Laing trained him, and I liked the Pentire breed. Rangirangdoo was out of a Kenfair mare and I thought that might put a bit of speed into the pedigree, so we took a punt on him.

“We went a lot further than our budget at that stage, I think we paid NZ$170,000 for Rangi, and he got me going with that new model - buying more stoutly bred horses.

“Guy and Chris, they know the pedigrees of these mares in New Zealand much better than I do, so it’s really a testament to their knowledge. They know the studs that produce winners and we’ve had a lot of luck.”

Best in the business

Both Kovalica and Kukeracha were purchased by leading bloodstock agent Guy Mulcaster from the NZB Karaka Yearling Sale, and Morgan is effusive in his praise for the man the bloodstock industry knows more affectionately as ‘The Captain’.

“He’s really my go-to bloodstock agent,” Morgan said. “We’ve bought horses in the past with John Foote and we’ve had success with John, but because of Guy’s association with Chris, my association with him has grown as well.

“Guy is a very, very good judge and has a very good eye for a horse, he’s found a lot of nice horses for us.

“I used to joke with him that my definition of a good bloodstock agent was someone that got lucky twice. He’s certainly put that theory to bed.”

Morgan is equally as gushing in his assessment of trainer Chris Waller, with whom he has enjoyed multiple successes at the highest level over the past decade.

Waller is in the midst of another fine season, having captured the race that had eluded him for so long, the G1 Golden Slipper S., courtesy of Coolmore’s star colt Shinzo (Snitzel). The master trainer also has two Derbys and a G1 Caulfield Cup to go alongside his three juvenile Group 1 wins for the campaign, and Morgan has never been one to question Waller’s ability to get the best out of all types of racehorse.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that Chris is certainly one of the best trainers in the world,” he said.

“For a young guy his record speaks for itself. We joined Chris at a stage when I think he’d trained two Group 1 winners, so it has been a great ride watching him make his way.

“I think that furphy of him not being a 2-year-old trainer has been put to bed. He always has been, it’s just the nature of his training - if he wants to set them for a Golden Slipper, and the horse is good enough, they will win it.

“They (Chris Waller Racing) are a well-oiled machine.”

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

As one of the largest operations in the country, Waller unsurprisingly has horses of all price-tags residing across his four stables, including a number of seven-figure yearling purchases.

All of Morgan’s four winners on Saturday, however, were purchased for $130,000 or less - and you won’t find the leading owner putting his hand up at the million-dollar mark anytime soon.

“I just shake my head when I see these yearling prices,” he said. “I know they’re well-bred fillies or well-bred colts mostly, but paying $1.5 million or $2 million for a horse is… Well I couldn’t afford it for a start!

“I sometimes wonder how they justify that sort of investment. We set a limit of around $500,000, which is also a lot of money, but fortunately we don’t always have to go that high. Guy (Mulcaster) found this one (Kovalica) for NZ$110,000 and that’s the price range I tend to operate in.

“When we bought Kovalica we bought three horses. I think one was for NZ$380,000, one may have been for NZ$180,000 and Kovalica was NZ$110,000 - he was the cheapest of the lot and at this stage he’s clearly the best of the lot!”

Kovalica is just the latest name in a long list of Group 1 winners for Morgan, joining the likes of Kolding, Kemalpasa (Magnus) and Darley stallion Kermadec as notable top-flight winners for the Brisbane-based owner.

You need not be an aspiring Sherlock Holmes to notice a pattern among those monikers, and Morgan revealed that the decision to name the majority of his string with words beginning with ‘K’ is the product of a routine conversation with one of his trainers several years ago.

“I had a couple of horses with Richard Jolly in Adelaide - Kushadasi, who won a South Australian Derby, and a really good sprinter that probably should have won a Goodwood over there called Karacatis,” he recalled.

“I said to him that I had to name some more horses and he said, ‘Well just keep naming them with Ks, because that works’.

“I did, and then when the time came to name some that I had in Sydney with Chris (Waller), we adopted the same strategy. It’s nothing else other than that, but it seems to be working, so we’ll keep on doing it.

“I race a few horses with a friend of mine up here called David Devine and it drives him mad that they all start with K. So every now and again he has a breakout, and he called one Shaquero, which went against my model, but he went and won the Magic Millions (2YO Classic), so I had to tip my lid to him for that one.”