Graham dreaming of Millennium glory with $70,000 Inglis buy Royal Exile
Port Macquarie’s Jenny Graham – back in her second coming as a trainer with just a quintet of horses – admits she’d be lost for words if her two-year-old gelding Royal Exile (King’s Legacy) wins Saturday’s $2 million Inglis Millennium (RL, 1100m) at Randwick.
In fact, she’s already lost for words just thinking about it.
“I wouldn’t even be able to describe it. I really wouldn’t,” Graham told ANZ News. “I guess I think about it and how good that would be. It’d be a wonderful dream.
“Realistically, it’d be a pretty big task, but you can’t win it if you’re not in it.”
Royal Exile, a somewhat accidental $70,000 Inglis Classic buy for Graham, will be one of two sons of Coolmore sire King’s Legacy (Redoute’s Choice) contesting the feature.
The other also packs a punch for lovers of the romance of the turf, in that he’s from the small – though not as small as Graham’s – stable of Randwick-based octogenarian Les Bridge, in the colt Audit.
This pair in fact ran the quinella in a five-runner 1200-metre two-year-old handicap at Wyong’s Saturday metro meeting on January 10, with $21 debutant Audit coming from the back to lead in odds-on favourite Royal Exile by 0.17 lengths.
Despite that finishing order, and the fact Audit has gate 11 for Andrew Adkins and Royal Exile barrier 20 for Sam Clipperton – with both to move in three sans emergencies – bookmakers have Bridge’s chestnut at $61 for Saturday, with Graham’s bay at $18.
“I thought that was odd,” Graham said of the odds. “People must have reasons for it – I don’t really know what they are – but I’m happy enough with my horse.”
Graham has had big city successes, most notably with Victorem (I Am Invincible) taking Randwick’s Country Championships Final (1400m) in 2018 – when it was “only” worth $600,000, short of the $1 million it carries now – plus a Group 2 and two Listeds in Brisbane.
But she is eminently happy staying in Port Macquarie, where she’s part of the town’s most famous racing family. One daughter, Melinda Turner, is an ex-jockey turned presenter on Sky, while another, Angela Graham, is a former trainer who now works with her mother.
Former brother-in-law Peter Graham is a famed country jockey, now also with a trainer’s licence, while his daughter Cejay has forged a surging career in the saddle in Brisbane.
Jenny had built herself up to become one of rural NSW’s most recognisable trainers, with her 16-box stable always full, and with many country features coming her way.
But she quit all of that and sold up in 2023 to care for her elderly father Jack Avery. After he moved into a care home, Graham found the lure of horses irresistible, though in a far smaller fashion than before.
“I don’t want to go back into full–time training again. It’s now more of a hobby,” she said. “I’ve bought another truck and bought all the gear, but it’s all just enough for four or so horses. Hopefully they can run a bit, and I can just poke around with them and have some fun.”
Graham ventured to Inglis Classic last year hoping to restart her stable. She bought the colt who turned out to be the gelding Royal Exile, bred by NSW’s Orpheo PL and offered by Ridgmont, but it perhaps wasn’t the most deliberate of purchases.
“I didn’t know much about him, to be honest,” said Graham, who’d gone with a friend, Gosford-based trainer Angela Davies.
“Ange was looking at another horse in the same draft, by Capitalist, and then this horse [Royal Exile] came out at the same time. Someone else was looking at him, but I thought, ‘Geez – that’s a nice horse’.”
While Davies would buy the Capitalist colt for $60,000 – he’s still preparing for his first start – Graham moved fast to arrange an inspection of the other one.
“He wasn’t an overly big horse, just nice and compact, but I thought he was just a nice moving horse. He always looked like he was going somewhere – he always had a bit of purpose about where he was going,” said Graham, who ran a sideline in breaking during her earlier training career.
“The breaking experience does help when looking at yearlings. I look at a lot of them for their body language. How they are around the place is usually a sign of how they’re going to be in their racing.
“I sent him to Matt Vella at Hawkesbury to break him in. He said he was good to deal with, though he could be a little bit tricky with shying occasionally, but he’s been straightforward since I’ve had him. He does everything right and doesn’t need any gear.”
Royal Exile’s dam and second dam managed only a 1000-metre maiden win each, at Hawkesbury and Bairnsdale respectively. But third dam Volcada (Stravinsky) won an Adelaide Listed race and threw dual stakes–winning gelding Kaepernick (Fastnet Rock) – not that bloodlines have been a huge issue for Graham.
“I’m not really into pedigrees, mainly because I’ve got to get around what I can afford,” she said. “I didn’t so much look at the King’s Legacy aspect of it. I look a bit more on type, and something that I like, rather than a strong pedigree.
“But I’m a big fan of the Classic sale. I’ve bought a few horses there and had a bit of luck. It’s common knowledge that you can pay reasonable money there and a lot of times end up with quite a good horse.
“I’ll be going back to Classic next week. I’m not sure if I’ll buy anything, but I’ll be having a look.”
Graham also paid $30,000 at last year’s sale for a Captivant (Capitalist) colt from Mullaglass Stud’s draft. He’s now the gelding Vantorix, who won at Taree in November in his only start so far.
Royal Exile repeated that trick on debut, winning at Taree by 0.67 lengths two days before Christmas.
Both horses are raced by large groups of mostly long-term clients of Graham’s, with her daughters also in the ownership.
They are also often ridden in their work by Graham’s friend and fellow trainer Paul Snowden, who relocated to Port Macquarie after his split from father and training partner Peter in 2024. While the track has no pool, and the town’s beaches are usually too populated by dogs to make it safe for thoroughbreds, Graham likes to vary her horses’ preparations by taking them to Snowden’s property to wade chest-deep in a creek.
Vantorix and Royal Exile have been Graham’s only starters since she resumed training, giving her two wins and a narrow second for a neat 66.66 per cent winning ratio.
Royal Exile will have to clear a major class rise if he’s to make it 75 per cent.
Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott’s Golden Gift (1100m) third Plagiarism (Written By) heads the Millennium market at $5.50, with Blue Diamond Preview (Listed, 1000m) hero Alibaba (Alabama Express) and Team Hayes’s 5.75 length Seymour debut winning filly Jacaranda (Home Affairs) at $7.
Team Munce’s last start Sunshine Coast victor Star Of Jamaica (Profiteer) is at $8, while Ciaron Maher’s Inglis Banner (RL, 1000m) queen Calamari Ring (Street Boss) is at $8.50.
But Graham believes that narrow Wyong second of Royal Exile’s was strong enough to suggest he has a chance on Saturday, even having drawn an out-of-towner’s gate, albeit in a one-turn affair.
“I was happy enough with his Wyong run, but I would’ve liked a bit more speed on. He sat outside the leader and it didn’t really suit him,” she said. “But I was happy enough, he’s pulled up well from it, and his last piece of work [on Tuesday] with Paul riding him was good.
“The Millennium will be high pressure, so there will be speed, so that’s good. I’m happy enough with how the horse is going into the race, but we have drawn awkwardly.
“He’ll have to go back. I don’t want to dig him hard to push up on the speed. If we can be midfield or a little bit worse, just try to settle and get in a rhythm, and if he gets a nice run in transit and relaxes and gets carted into the race, I know he’s got a nice finish.”
Victory for Royal Exile – or Audit – would bring a welcome boost for King’s Legacy, whose $1.4 million yearling purchase by bloodstock behemoth James Harron paid off with the ATC Sires’ Produce (Gr 1, 1400m) and Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) double and a stud career.
The Coolmore stallion has 31 winners from 85 runners with two crops running, but only one stakes victor so far in Steel Trap, who took Adelaide’s David Coles Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) last season.
The eight-year-old King’s Legacy covered 62 mares in his fifth season at stud last spring at $16,500, down from 113 at $22,000 the year before, after starting with 213 at $33,000 in 2021.