“OLD LEGEND” KEEPS TEAM PRICE CLEAR IN TRAINERS’ PREMIERSHIP

IT may well turn out to be the defining race of Illawarra Turf Club’s trainer’s premiership this season.

With only two meetings remaining (July 17 and 26) before the curtain falls on the 2024-25 racing year at Kembla Grange, father and son duo Rob and Luke Price lead rival Mitch Beer by three wins as they seek a hat-trick of local titles.

But it could have been a much different outcome at the end of yesterday’s meeting if a horse Luke Price refers to as an “old legend” had not scored at his favorite distance (1600m) in the Conditional Benchmark 68 Handicap.

Team Price began the meeting with a four-win buffer, but that was quickly cut to two when Beer won both the Class 1 Handicap (1400m) with Butterfly Style ($5) and Midway Maiden Handicap (1200m) with $31 rank outsider Girls Weekend (Jean Van Overmeire).

Two races later rising seven-year-old Satness ($4.40), having his 64th start, saved the day for the Price camp when he determinedly held out Beer’s late finishing This Is The Moment ($6.50).

“He’s an old legend,” Luke Price said of Satness, who notched the eighth victory of his career – and seven have been at 1600m.

“Satness is always hard to beat when he backs up, especially over his favorite trip.”

The Sweynesse gelding was dropping back to provincial grade after finishing 10th in an unsuitable 1300m Benchmark 78 Handicap at Rosehill Gardens yesterday week when having his first start in more than a month.

Four of his overall career wins – which include a Royal Randwick 1600m Midway Benchmark 72 Handicap in September 2023 – have been on his home track, and not surprisingly, three have been at the ‘mile’.

Satness was the middle leg of a treble for comeback jockey Brock Ryan, no stranger to both the six-year-old and the colours he races in.

This was the 17th occasion he has ridden him in a career highlighted by the ill-fated Count De Rupee’s $1m victory in the $1m The Gong (1600m) at Kembla Grange in 2021, in the same white and tartan maltese cross livery.

Ryan, 31, pulled the pin after riding outsider Extreme Freedom for Team Price at Hawkesbury on March 28 last year.

He worked for 12 months as a member of the track staff at Kembla Grange before “getting the buzz back”, as he put it, and resuming his career only three weeks ago.

Ryan rode his first winner back on Team Price’s Cuban Rain at home on June 3, and then scored on Close Encounter for fellow Kembla Grange trainer Kerry Parker at Nowra last Tuesday.

He won the Class 1 Handicap (1200m) yesterday on Zouripper ($4.40) and dead-heated on Cheeky Dancer ($8.50) with Prince Harrison ($6.50) in the closer, the Super Maiden Plate (1400m).

. Beer’s This Is The Moment’s second placing earned him five points in the ITC Horse Of The Year award, which is up for grabs.

This Is The Moment is now equal second with Kerry Parker’s Equilibrist (33 points), only a solitary point behind Team Price’s Invade And Conquer.

Story John Curtis, June 22, 2025 - Pics Bradley Photos