A city victory for any Provincial trainer is always special.
But Adam Duggan’s success with Diamond Diesel at Royal Randwick yesterday carried even more significance – and it’s easy to understand why.
The Gosford trainer has had a long association with the family of Newcastle’s gun young rider and Sydney premiership front-runner Dylan Gibbons, who numbered Diamond Diesel among his four-timer at the Winter Stakes meeting.
It was Dylan’s father Andrew who played a part in Duggan taking out his licence, and he was also best man at Andrew’s wedding to his first wife Belinda.
“I was always going to train, but friends of Andrew wanted to race a horse and that was more or less the push I needed to do it,” Duggan recalled today.
“I’ve known Dylan since he was a baby, so to have him win that race for me yesterday was so much more special.
“He is such a confident young man, and so grounded.
“I know he can no longer claim, but I can’t see that making any difference as he is such a good rider.
“Dylan’s first winner for me was on a So You Think mare called Sancta in a 1200m Maiden at Port Macquarie on April 26, 2021.
“And his first winner on a metropolitan track was also for me. He won on Made By Khan at Warwick in early January last year.
“Dylan had won the Spring Stakes (Group 3) on Festival Dancer at The Hunter stand-alone Saturday meeting at Newcastle about seven weeks earlier, but it was the first time he had ridden a winner on a city track when he scored on Made By Khan.
“He has now ridden 11 winners for me, and has a terrific strike rate of just over 26 per cent on my horses.”
Duggan’s two city wins this season – Made By Khan was the first, also at Randwick, on Christmas Eve – have both been partnered by Gibbons.
Rising six-year-old Made By Khan, has been a “bloody ripper”, to use Duggan’s words, for his trainer and owners.
“We bought him online two years ago as a three-year-old for $42,500 after he had only six starts in Victoria, and had just won a 1500m Maiden at Mornington,” Duggan said.
“He has won four races (Gibbons has been aboard in three of them), including three in the city and has won $160,000 prizemoney, and the only metropolitan track he hasn’t won at is Rosehill Gardens.
“Made By Khan is back in work, and I believe he can be a nice country cups horse in the new season.”
Duggan put blinkers on Diamond Diesel for yesterday’s Midway Handicap (1200m) in a bid to break a frustrating though consistent run of minor placings.
“He had been placed at all five runs (the previous three also in Midways in town) since resuming, and felt he needed the blinkers to give him that something extra in the finish,” he explained.
“I noticed a real difference on the bridle in him when he worked in the blinkers at Gosford last Wednesday, and that gave me confidence he would be hard to beat yesterday.”
A $65,000 Inglis Classic yearling sale buy in 2021, Diamond Diesel made his debut in Hong Kong when unplaced over 1200m at Sha Tin in June 2021 before coming back to Australia and joining Duggan’s stable last year.
The Mossman five-year-old revelled in heavy ground by winning his first two starts for his new trainer; an 1100m Maiden Plate at home on July 23, and then a Class 1 Handicap (1200m) at Newcastle on August 11.
No prizes for guessing who also rode him in both those wins!
It has been another good season for Duggan with 15 winners (65 in the last five seasons), as he edges toward a career 150.
The horse which Andrew Gibbons’ friends bought for Duggan to train when he took out his licence in 2006 was Mr Blue Sky – a $7500 Scone yearling purchase.
But whilst he was the first horse into his stable, he wasn’t Duggan’s initial runner.
Yo Ho Diablo, a $7.50 chance, began the trainer’s career on his home track on April 3, 2007, but failed to beat a runner home in a field of seven in an 1100m Maiden.
“Yo Ho Diablo managed a couple of placings at Gosford and Muswellbrook, but didn’t win a race from 15 starts,” Duggan said.
“We found out he had an AV block (heart murmur) and retired him after he finished last in a field of five as favorite at the Bong Bong picnic meeting in November, 2008.”
Though there wasn’t any joy with Yo Ho Diablo, blue sky was about to emerge.
Only seven weeks after Yo Ho Diablo’s debut flop, Mr Blue Sky won at Gosford (fittingly with Andrew Gibbons on board) at only his second start.
“Mr Blue Sky didn’t begin racing until well into his four-year-old season and was a good horse for us, scoring twice at big odds,” Duggan said. “He was $21 when he won that day at Gosford, and I couldn’t run him again until toward the end of 2007 as equine influenza struck the industry.
“He won first-up at Rosehill over 1200m in December that year at $26.
“Mr Blue Sky kick-started my career. He won five races from only 16 starts.”
Whilst Mr Blue Sky certainly got Duggan off on the right path, along came Frozen Rope, who also strung some nice wins together.
He won successive races at Port Macquarie and Wyong in 2011, and again put two Rosehill victories together in January and February, 20123.
“Frozen Rope came to me in rather unusual circumstances,” Duggan said.
“Some golfing mates who knew my good mate Josh Parr (who rode the gelding in five of his eight wins, including those two at Rosehill), wanted to get involved in a horse.
“One of the golfers was playing in a pro-am at Canberra one day and rang me to say he knew of a horse in Victoria that was available for lease.
“He was an unraced two-year-old by King Of Prussia, and jockey Luke Nolen’s father Vincent had broken him in.
“They were happy to send the horse up to us, and I thought he was raw but a good-sized youngster when he got off the float.
“I got him going and loved the way he moved and his attitude. He was such a good horse to us.”
Duggan had high hopes for Sir Elton, an aptly-named son of Your Song, whom he went beyond his $100,000 budget to buy for $175,000 at the 2017 Inglis Premier yearling sale.
He won his first three starts in 2019 at Gosford, Wyong and Randwick, and the phone kept ringing the more he kept winning.
“There were massive offers from Hong Kong, but in retrospect Sir Elton may not have passed a stringent veterinary test to go there even it if was agreed to sell him,” Duggan said.
“Frozen Rope was the best performed horse I have trained, but Sir Elton was potentially the best.
“I thought he had a terrific chance of winning the Provincial Championships, but unfortunately he had a few issues and never reproduced his earlier form.”
Duggan never contemplated doing anything other than being involved in racing.
From the time as a young slip of a lad his uncle Trevor Ward began taking him behind the barriers on racedays, he was always going to be involved in one way or another.
Having now held a training licence for more than a decade and a half, he is regarded as one of the most astute in the business, always placing his horses to the best advantage from his boutique Gosford stable.
“I was born into a racing family as my grandfather Len Ward was a jockey, Mum’s cousin Neil Ward has trained successfully at Gosford and still potters about with one or two horses, and uncle Trevor is the one who really got me interested,” Duggan recalled.
“He started taking me to the barriers on racedays when I was 11 or 12 years of age.
“Things are a bit different these days, and it probably wouldn’t be allowed.
“I used to go to Neil’s stables mucking out boxes, and return there after school.”
At just 17 years of age, he joined the Kylie Gavenlock stable, and it was the beginning of an enjoyable and successful association with the popular Gosford trainer.
“I had always wanted to ride trackwork, and Kylie threw me in the deep end one day,” Duggan said.
“When I turned 18, Kylie appointed me as her foreman. I’m pretty sure I was the youngest foreman, and worked with Kylie for many, many years.
“It was terrific experience. They were great times.”
Duggan is especially appreciative of the tremendous assistance he receives from his partner Jess. The couple has two sons, Jack and Henry.
“Jess has been with me from the time I began training,” he said. “She is a big part of the business and I wouldn’t have been able to do this without her encouragement and backing.
“She is my No 1 supporter.”
*Words John Curtis, July 9, 2023 - Pics Bradley Photos*
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