'When you get a day like yesterday, it's a relief more than anything': Billy Healey on Cosmic Fire

Cover image courtesy of Trackside Photography

For Sunshine Coast-based trainer Billy Healey, the victory of rising stable star Cosmic Fire (Cosmic Force) in the Listed Queensland Day Stakes on Saturday came as a “relief” more than anything else. The proof is in the pudding that the young trainer’s stable has been on an upward trajectory over the last 12 months, and the best is yet to come.

“We've felt like over the last 12 months that we've had a couple of horses that are probably up to stakes level, including, obviously, this fella, and we just felt like things needed to go our way,” Healey said. “And it probably didn't feel that way on Wednesday when we drew (barrier) 15. However, he obviously overcame that and got a great ride, and the rest is history. So it's a good feeling, that's for sure.”

The win was Healey’s first at stakes level across 10 years with a training licence, having first partnered with his father Dale Healey when he turned 18, before going out on his own in 2018 after his father’s passing.

There have been a couple of close calls - including training the great Alligator Blood (All Too Hard) to fourth in the Listed Goldmarket Quality, during the spring of 2021 before the galloper transferred to Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott - but Healey believed from the beginning that Cosmic Fire had the ability to go all the way.

A horse on fire

Thoroughbreds have always been a part of Healey’s life. A champion young rider in the showjumping ring, he learned his craft under the tutelage of trainers like Jason McLachlan and Natalie McCall.

“I grew up around thoroughbreds, obviously. I always wanted to be in the industry in some way - I was going to be too big to be a jockey, that was my first thought, and that obviously got crushed pretty quickly!”

The 2023 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale was his first time buying at the January sale as a solo trainer. An $80,000 purchase from Sullival Bloodstock, Healey signed for the now gelded son of Cosmic Force in partnership with Furlong Bloodstock and On Fire Racing.

“I remember him pretty clearly as a yearling,” Healey recalled. “Probably more than the others. He just had an unbelievable physical, I felt. I thought he was just a very good looking horse.

“I remember thinking, ‘oh, I won't be able to buy this horse. He'll make too much money’. So I was pleasantly surprised when he got in the ring and we got him for what we did, because I would have gone a little bit further because I really did like him. There was plenty there that we couldn’t afford, so it was great to secure him.”

Cosmic Fire was one of three yearlings Healey bought in 2023 for a total spend of $240,000; along with Benzou (Zousain), a full brother to Listed Lonhro Plate winner Bellazaine, and Rosie Cheeks (Dubious), the trio have earned nearly $500,000 in prize money to date. But Cosmic Fire has always been the standout performer, earning his shot at the big time this preparation.

“He’s been ultra consistent this preparation and over the last few preparations of his career,” Healey said. “He demolished them in his maiden (last May), and then was thrown pretty well in the deep end in the Sires’ Produce against a horse like Broadsiding. He was probably nowhere near ready for that.”

Cosmic Fire had just missed out on a run the week before in the $1 million Magic Millions National 2YO Classic, which Healey believed much more suitable. After leading the whole way, the then 2-year-old found the extra furlong too big of an ask.

“He had to go to the 1400 metres a week later instead, and it was probably a bridge too far.

“But he came back last prep and had three good runs. Arguably he ran into a very good filly in Tony and Calvin McEvoy’s filly (Arabian Summer) on the Gold Coast, where he drew completely off the track and he was four or five wide the whole way and flew home.

“That probably cemented to me that he could chase one of these black-type races throughout our winter.”

The win on Saturday made Cosmic Fire the fourth individual stakeswinner for Cosmic Force, who has become a favourite of Healey’s. He teamed up with Furlong Bloodstock to purchase another son at this year’s Magic Millions Perth Yearling Sale for $15,000 from Mogumber Park.

“He’s a good stallion,” Healey said of the Newgate Farm resident. “I’ve also got a couple in the stable that I really like, that haven’t gotten to the best of their abilities yet, but they will in time.

“I loved his father as a sire as well. They're just unbelievable horses and beautiful animals. They've got really good attitudes, which makes them really trainable. I think that's a big thing. It's hard to get horses that are trainable and have minds like they do, but his progeny have really impressed me, and I think he's a stallion that will only continue to go from strength to strength.”

A shrinking racing world

Healey’s operation, based in the Glasshouse Mountains, currently numbers 40 horses in work, and Healey has a keen eye for the yearling sales ring and for tried horses on Inglis Digital to constantly improve upon the stable’s quality.

“I try and buy as many yearlings as I can every year, but I’m quite picky,” Healey said. “We don’t have a big budget and we buy every horse on spec, so we don’t have anything sold before we buy. It’s a little daunting, it’s a bit of a tougher cast. You’ve got to buy these horses and hope they can run, because you’re stuck with them in the end if you can’t sell them.”

The economic downturn has sent seismic waves through the lower half of the yearling market, particularly over the past sales season, and Healey has not been ignorant of the shifts where he is shopping.

“It’s obviously been a lot tougher selling them this year,” he said. “I think the people in the market area that I try to shop in have been really affected by the economy. People with a lot of money, they generate their own wealth, don't they? The high price yearlings will always find a home. That's no problem.

“But I think there's a little bit of a hole there in that middle market. You can find really good value, but at the same time, for us, I guess it's not about just finding the value, it's about finding the owner for them going forward. And that's been easier said than done this year.

“COVID was a funny thing. We’ve never sold so many shares as in COVID. Our business just grew and grew and grew. I think we bought 13 yearlings or something for the year. We sold every one of them. We've been very fortunate that we've had a very good last six months training, but just because yearlings are cheap, it doesn't mean you can sell them right now.”

The world of racing has also shrunk significantly with many of the country’s major trainers setting up satellite stables in Queensland. Healey has felt the squeeze in the region’s racing.

“I think it's getting very much more competitive here,” Healey said. “It's hard to win a race anywhere now. It's not like it was five and six years ago, now Queensland is very strong.

“It’s made it a lot tougher. Those horses would have come to the likes of us as their next port of call before. The owner might have said, ‘oh, it's better suited to Queensland’, and put it on a truck, and you might have been in with a chance of landing it if you're going well at the time and they pulled up the premiership, or were watching the races on a Sunday or a Saturday.

“Now with the satellite stables, you're not probably as much of a chance of that. Ballina and Grafton used to be out of their reach. You pull up at Lismore races now and the two trucks either side of you are Kris Lees and Annabel Archibald. The highways are better too, so they can just put them on a truck and send them.”

The pinch is felt on the owners’ end as well, and Healey suggested that Racing Queensland could look to the Racing Victoria model of free nominations in an attempt to entice more owners to join and stay in the industry.

“If you’re having to nominate three or four times a weekend (to try and secure a start) then it becomes very expensive. It’s all added to , I think. If owners have to keep dipping into their pockets, it makes it hard to get the results, they’ve got to be worth it.”

Strong relationships

On Fire Racing have certainly seen the worth in continuing to associate with Healey, and have been one of his biggest backers over the last five years.

“They normally buy into one or two every year,” Healey said. “This year, they’ve gone into two that we have purchased. We’ll buy a horse and either they will approach us, if they like it, or we will approach them with one we think they might be interested in. They don't always go out and buy their own, and then try to send them to trainers. They're happy to team up with a trainer where they can.

“They're a great bunch of blokes that are just really easy to train for. They're terrific. I haven't trained for a better crew than them.”

Healey’s relationship with On Fire Racing came courtesy of Shane Mills Bloodstock’s Rochelle Adams, who facilitated the connection when the syndicate purchased Rising Fire (Headwater) for $40,000 from A List Stud at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Horses In Training sale in late 2020. Intent on sending the horse north to race in Darwin, the syndicate needed a trainer to kickstart the gelding’s career - and Healey delivered.

“We had the pleasure of being able to educate him and we ended up with quite a handy horse,” he said. “He won on debut very well, so I got him ready and took him up to Darwin, and then I ran him in the Darwin Guineas (for second) and the Darwin Derby (for third).

“That’s where it all started. He was their first horse with me, and it’s slowly built from there to another one, then another one, then another one. And then we ended up with Cosmic Fire.”

Healey will be patient to see how the gelding pulls up after his run, but he’s not calling it quits on this campaign just yet.

“We'll be a little bit determined by how far he goes up in the ratings, and then we’ll go from there. We’ll just see what happens.”

For now, he can enjoy yesterday’s win, and not just for the feeling of relief it brings.

“We live by our motto - we try to place everything where we think they’re going to be competitive. It's not always days like yesterday, that's for sure. There's long hours and long days and long nights, and it can be quite tough from time to time. But when you get a day like yesterday, like I said, it's a relief more than anything, but it's rewarding at the same time.”

Healey credits the support of his wife Kelly Slater and the team at home for bringing the best out of his horses.

“It’s very hard to do without them. They’re the backbone of the operation. I’m obviously the face of it, but without them, it wouldn’t be where it is today.”