RYAN’S STAKES TRIUMPH WITH FILLY HE COULDN’T SELL

THE words of Newgate Farm managing director Henry Field were ringing in his ears!

It turned out prophetic advice when Hawkesbury trainer Blake Ryan achieved a career milestone at Scone’s metropolitan meeting yesterday, clinching a breakthrough stakes triumph – and with a $151 bolter to boot.

Ryan’s Queen Regent, ridden by his close friend Jay Ford, powered past her rivals in the Listed Woodlands Stakes (1100m) for two-year-old fillies at only her second start.

Ryan revealed Field, who stands the filly’s sire, Group 1 winner Wild Ruler (a son of Snitzel), at Newgate at a fee of $27,500 this spring, called him after Queen Regent had easily won a Hawkesbury barrier trial (800m) on March 23.

“Henry suggested giving serious consideration to running Queen Regent in the Woodlands at Scone,” Ryan explained today.

“I was thinking more the Wellington Boot (run on April 12), but he said the Woodlands doesn’t always come up the strongest race, so I kept his thoughts at the back of my mind.”

Ryan settled on his home track for Queen Regent’s debut on April 14 in a 1000m 2YO Maiden Plate – but it didn’t work out as he had expected.

“I went there confident she could win, but in retrospect it was a mistake to start off at home,” he said.

“She got worked up, overdid it and ran fourth.

“I decided to nominate her for Scone, and see if she made the field and then turn her out afterwards if she did.

“As it turned out, Queen Regent was number 20 and fourth emergency for the Woodlands, but she got into the race through a number of scratchings.

“Of course I didn’t expect her to win, but thought the experience would be good and if she could run midfield that would be pleasing and we would send her out to mature further.”

Queen Regent did more than finish midfield. Settling this time with cover, she stormed home out in the centre of the track when clear and won like a short-priced favorite rather than one of the rank outsiders of the 14-horse line-up.

Indeed a stakes breakthrough was a wonderful reward for the experienced horseman’s hard work that resulted in him posting his 52^nd career winner after taking the bit between his teeth and branching out on his own to train, setting up shop at Hawkesbury and scoring with his first starter, Divine Future at Orange on February 20, 2021.

Ryan has made a name for himself preparing unraced two-year-olds for the Inglis Ready2Race in Sydney each spring – and it was where he tried to sell Queen Regent without success.

He had paid $40,000 for the daughter of Wild Ruler and three-times Melbourne winner Miss Vixen (by Foxwedge) as a yearling at Inglis’ HTBA sale in Sydney last year.

“To be fair she got sick leading up to the Ready2Race sale, and didn’t present as I would have liked,” he said.

“But there was no interest in her.

“I had her advertised on my website for five months.

“When Queen Regent didn’t reach her reserve price, I said to my wife Jess that I wasn’t going to give her away.

“She reminded me a lot of Dad’s (successful Rosehill trainer Gerald Ryan) Snitzerland, who won eight races including the Group 1 Lightning Stakes (1000m) at Flemington.

“The filly’s breeder Geoff Wilson rang back and was keen to stay in her, and that was great.

“Jess and I kept 15 per cent.”

Ironically, Ryan believes Queen Regent would have been far easier to sell if she had been a $300,000 yearling.

“Owners who can pay such a price are in a position where they can afford to do so,” Ryan said.

“Not so with the Mums and Dads, who now have to use money they would previously have used buying a small share in a horse paying for fuel, and grocery and electricity bills.

“It’s the way the world is these days.”Ryan, whose first city winner was Momack at Rosehill Gardens in May 2022 (the same horse was nearly his first stakes winner when narrowly beaten at $51 in the Listed Ladies Day Cup, 1600m at home later that year), isn’t changing his mind.

He won’t be chasing further success in the coming weeks with Queen Regent, who is definitely going for a spell.

“That was always the plan,” Ryan said.

“All going well, we can look at a race such as The Rosebud (1100m) for three-year-olds early in the new season, and hopefully some of the shorter races in the Princess Series.”

Newcastle apprentice Shannen Llewellyn, like Ryan, also had a red letter day at the Scone meeting.

The talented young Newcastle jockey won her first Saturday metropolitan race, fittingly for her master, trainer Nathan Doyle.

Llewellyn guided Lightning Glory ($10) home in the 3&4YO Benchmark 72 Handicap (1300m).

She gave Doyle’s four-year-old a great ride, getting him to the post just in time ahead of a fast-finishing Nitro ($3 favorite), who gave away too big a start.

Lightning Glory (by Hallowed Crown), the third foal of former Newcastle mare Kandy, is building a tidy record.

He has now won four of his six starts, and his Scone success was his third in a row.

STORY JOHN CURTIS, MAY 17, 2026 - PIC SUPPLIED