BLAKE RYAN SAW SOMETHING IN QUEEN REGENT THAT OTHERS DIDN’T

Queen Regent pricked her ears as she careered away to win the black type Woodlands Stakes at Scone - courtesy Bradley Photographers.

Blake Ryan sat in stunned silence after the running of the 2YO Maiden Plate at Hawkesbury on April 14th. He’d just watched his first starter Queen Regent lead around the hometurn before being beaten into fourth place in the 1000m dash. “I was devastated that I’d gotten it so wrong,” said the trainer. “In my heart I thought it was a matter of going around. Her work had been consistently good and she’d absolutely cantered home in a barrier trial on March 23rd. To take likely trouble out of the equation I told Jay Ford to give her a “dig” out of the gates and go straight to the front. You guessed it. She just went far too hard and left herself without a kick from the 200m. A few of the owners secured top odds but were left lamenting. It was a day to forget.”

Fast forward to the big Scone meeting on Saturday. Queen Regent was made fourth emergency at acceptances for the black type Yarraman Park Woodlands Stakes and looked unlikely to gain a start. That problem was resolved on Saturday morning when no less than six scratchings were declared. Blake was perhaps slightly offended when the market dished the filly up at the unflattering odds of $151.00. He simply focused on asking Jay Ford to give Queen Regent an off-the-pace “smother” and to produce her late. In his heart he knew she was lengths better than her Hawkesbury run had indicated.

The $40,000 filly that nobody wanted has won a stakes race at just her second start - courtesy Bradley Photographers.

Ford complied with Blake’s request to the letter. At the 600m Lady Catalina was joined on the outside by Moscatel with Home Siren handy on the fence inside Hulaland. Hellenic Belle was three deep with Tigroni even wider. Queen Regent was travelling strongly right on Hellenic Belle’s heels with the well tried Found The Gold on her outside. On straightening a run between Tigroni and Found the Gold appeared likely but didn’t eventuate. Ford had to come back half a length before getting across Found The Gold’s heels. With clear air ahead Queen Regent did what Blake had expected her to do at Hawkesbury. She fairly exploded past some handy fillies to put almost a length and a half on Found The Gold with the impeccably bred Lady Catalina in third place. Another fifty metres and Queen Regent’s winning margin would have been greater. It was the work of a filly with better things ahead.

Queen Regent was airborne on the line in the Woodlands Stakes at Scone - courtesy Bradley Photographers.

Queen Regent’s backstory is an interesting one and Blake enjoys recounting it. He took a shine to the filly at the 2025 Inglis HTBA Yearling Sale despite having concerns about a couple of conformation issues. She was clearly offset at both knees and slightly pigeon-toed which obviously put many potential buyers off. “It put me off a little until I watched her at a brisk walk,” said the astute young trainer. “The quicker she went the better her action looked. I got my father Gerald Ryan to inspect her, and he felt she wouldn’t have a problem going forward. She appealed in every other way and her temperament was excellent. This sounds silly now, but she reminded me so much of Snitzerland which my father trained to win several black type races including a Gr 1 Lightning.

“She was one of the first foal crop by Wild Ruler, a young son of Snitzel and a brilliant racehorse himself. His Gr 1 came in the Moir Stakes, he’d won two Gr 2’s and two listed races and was a cracking third to September Run in the Coolmore Stud Stakes. He looked to be a bright stallion prospect going forward. Our filly’s out of Miss Vixen, a Foxwedge mare who’d won four races including two at Caulfield. Her second dam Kirvinsky won three from just seven starts including a couple at Flemington and one of those was a stakes race. It wasn’t exactly the Eight Carat family but good enough for the kind of budget I was operating on. I knew those little conformation glitches would help to keep her price down a little, but I was more than surprised to nail her for $40,000. I honestly expected to syndicate her pretty quickly. Was I in for a big shock.”

Queen Regent's sire Wild Ruler (Kerrin McEvoy) in the first of his 6 wins - the Inglis Nursery at Randwick 14/12/2019 - courtesy Bradley Photographers.

The trainer immediately offered shares in the Wild Ruler filly on his company website and was happy for interested parties to nominate the percentage share of their choice. He was in disbelief when several weeks went by without a single enquiry. Before he knew it, five months had passed and still not a “nibble.” He made the important decision to have the filly broken in before preparing her for the popular “Inglis Ready To Race Breeze-Up and Sale”. Despite having met every post sale expense for many months, Blake decided to “take a hit” and set a reserve of $30,000. Following an impressive “breeze-up” by the filly he was confident of achieving that reserve.

“You wouldn’t believe what happened next,” said the trainer. “She caught some sort of a bug and did badly between the breeze-up and the sale. She lost weight, her coat went off and by sale time she wasn’t the same filly. She got nowhere near $30,000 and I was forced to pass her in. Not long after I got a phone call from the filly’s breeder Geoff Wilson who was curious about my future plans. Anxious to keep her in the family, Geoff agreed to take a 75% share under his GW Holdings banner and arranged for a group of friends from Warragul to take 10% under the curious name of One More Beer. I happily snapped up the remaining 15% and registered my chunk under JCG Thoroughbreds after my three children Jack, Charlotte and Grace. You can bet Queen Regent had a few jockeys on board when she was charging down the outside on Saturday.”

A happy end to the Queen Regent story - Blake Ryan and Jay Ford at the presentation of trophies - courtesy Bradley Photographers.

Blake Ryan has crammed more variety into his 39 years than most people do in a lifetime. With a wealth of racing achievers on both sides of his family, it was always a certainty that this young man’s chosen path in life would have something to do with the sport. His maternal grandfather was former outstanding jockey Les Coles whose CV features the Caulfield and Melbourne Cup double on Even Stevens in 1962. His grandfather’s sister Jan was the mother of former celebrated jockey Malcolm Johnston. Blake’s father Gerald Ryan rode a Gr 1 winner in Victoria before transitioning into a stellar training career. Young Ryan realised early in life that his natural weight would preclude him from a riding career, but in teen years he found a gratifying alternative in riding trackwork. He became very adept at the art, and his services were greatly appreciated by his dad.

The winding down of TVN in 2012 saw Blake take a serious shot at amateur race riding. This one was taken at Grenfell - courtesy Bradley Photographers.

In 2005 the proactive nineteen year old turned his back on horses to experiment with another ambition. He grabbed the opportunity to join the team at TVN, a newly created racing channel jointly owned by the Victorian Racing Industry and the Australian Turf Club. Over the next seven years Blake gained invaluable experience in production and presentation while honing his race calling skills as understudy to resident caller Mark Shean. He got to call a number of full race meetings at one stage while Mark took extended sick leave. There’s little doubt he would have eventually carved himself a niche behind the binoculars but that dream was stopped in its tracks in 2012 when TVN’s NSW shareholders decided to split with their Victorian counterparts in favour of a deal offered by TAB owned Sky Channel.

Blake hadn’t been on a horse in five years but quickly picked up where he’d left off as one of Gerald’s valued trackwork riders. As soon as he attained a degree of fitness and a semblance of rhythm, he put another old ambition into go mode. Blake had turned 25 by the time he made his debut as a picnic jockey at Cootamundra in April 2012 - what a debut it was! He scored an easy win on Armidale’s Pride for Parkes trainer Leslie Bryant. It’s doubtful that grandfather Les Coles grinned any more broadly the day he won the Melbourne Cup on Even Stevens. Blake won on 10 of his first 25 rides. When he quit the amateur circuit two and a half years later, his record stood at 30 wins from 150 rides Another item had been stricken from his bucket list and it was time to move on.

Blake had been closely watching the progress of the Inglis Ready To Race Sales concept introduced by the famous auction house in 2013. He quickly put his name out there as a likely candidate for the role of preparing early 2YO’S for the “breeze-ups” and subsequent October Sale. He was commissioned to educate four youngsters in his first year, and that doubled the year after. In 2021 he prepared a dozen for the “breeze-ups” and that was followed by twenty one the following year. By then he was already training a handful of racehorses in his own right. With a gluttonous capacity for work and the help of some reliable offsiders, Blake was making it happen.

A winner at this first amateur race ride 14/04/2012. Blake won on Armidale's Pride at Cootamundra for trainer Leslie Bryant - courtesy Bradley Photographers.

His first training win came with his very first runner in February 2021 courtesy of his father. “Dad had a maiden three year old filly called Divine Future who refused to settle into stable life at Rosehill,” Blake recalled. “He felt she’d do much better in the quieter Hawkesbury environment where she could be outside in a yard all day. He was right. We won an Orange maiden with her a few weeks later, and not long after she won a Cl 1 at Canberra. She also placed half a dozen times. Divine Future was no Queen Regent, but she was pretty special to us.”

Blake's second training win with Divine Future (Adrian Layt) at Canberra 29/12/2021 - courtesy Bradley Photographers.

Blake’s first city win came in a Rosehill Midway on May 21st, 2022, with Momack ridden by Keagan Latham. Amazingly he wasn’t there to see it. Blake’s sense of duty had taken him all the way to Dubbo where he had two runners engaged in the Silver Goblet Prelude. “Somebody had to be at Dubbo with the two year olds and I got the job,” he recalled. “I watched the race on my phone in the horse stalls and cheered him home. Happily, our colts ran third and fourth at Dubbo so all in all, it was a pretty good day. Mind you I couldn’t wait to get home to give old Momack a pat.”

Another fifty wins have followed including a special few in town. Prior to the emergence of Queen Regent there was no doubt about the identity of the trainer’s all time favourite. He’s very fond of six year old mare Lady Extreme with whom he’s posted five wins and six placings. Three of those wins have been recorded at Rosehill. The daughter of Extreme Choice is currently spelling, and her trainer is anxiously awaiting her return to work.

Another win for the Ryan/Ford combination with Lady Extreme at Rosehill 30/08/2025 - courtesy Bradley Photographers.

As mentioned earlier Blake and his wife Jess are the proud parents of Jack (8), Grace (6) and baby Charlotte (3). He’s blessed to have the luxury of a wife who fully understands the mechanics of the racing game. Jess, a daughter of former successful apprentice Steven Mitchell initially honed her riding talents in the three day eventing pursuit, before becoming a member of Chris Waller’s trackwork team at Rosehill. She continues to remind Blake on occasions that she played a role in Winx’s early education. At the moment not even the great Winx can compare to Queen Regent in the affections of the young Hawkesbury trainer. After all Saturday’s win was achieved at the equivalent of a metropolitan meeting, and that smattering of black type didn’t do any harm either.

FOOTNOTE.

When you’re hot you’re hot! Blake continued the momentum at Newcastle on Tuesday with yet another three year old filly. There were no fancy odds about this one. Silk Lace started favourite at $3.10 with Emma Ly’s 3kg claim and absolutely blitzed a Cl 1 field in the 900m scamper. It was Silk Lace’s second consecutive win over the short course on the Newcastle track. She’s very smart.