Monday, June 11, 2018
Altona Green trainer Malcolm Davis’s winning strike rate once again held up at Tara Raceway on Sunday when kennelmates Mayhem Magic and Sweet Ambush ran the quinella in the opening race, the winningformula.net.au Stake (400 metres).
Raced by daughter-in-law Sonia Davis, Mayhem Magic, at only her second race start, led all the way from box four to defeat Sweet Ambush by 2¾ lengths in 23.43 seconds.
By Barcia Bale, Mayhem Magic is out of Blue Mayhem, a winner of 12 races and $23,000 in prizemoney, and a litter sister to White Spyro (22 wins and $60,000), Davis’s first Tara Raceway winner in July 2016.
Another member of Mayhem Magic’s litter, Lily Boswell, has won two races from six starts at Geelong for the Davis team and Anakie trainer Andrea Dailly.
Davis, accompanied on Sunday by his wife Christine, commenced making occasional visits to the Mount Gambier track back in 2016 and rarely makes the five-hour trip home without a winner.
In August 2016 he was at Tara Raceway with Hot Genetics who, despite having whelped a litter to Talk’s Cheap some 16 months earlier, won a Masters race over 400 metres in 23.49 seconds.
Six months later one of those pups was at Tara Raceway – Last Outlaw, who later that year was crowned the 2017 Victorian Coursing Greyhound of the Year, winning over 400 metres and upstaging his dam Hot Genetics who had run second in the previous race.
Also performing well for Sonia Davis is Last Outlaw’s litter sister Envy Heist, trained by Dailly and a winner of 13 races and close to $100,000 in prizemoney.
Speaking after Sunday’s win, Malcolm and Christine Davis said any success they achieve is a direct result of the effort put in by their son Craig and his wife Sonia, who are based at Murrabit, a small river town in northern Victoria.
“They ensure there’s continuity by generally breeding three litters a year and rearing something like 20 youngsters at any one time although some of the pups are sent to Queensland to be reared,” Malcolm Davis said.
And while various trainers are ultimately used, a couple of pups that will find their way to Altona Green will be from a mating of Spud Regis and Buckle Up Mauve, a litter sister to Buckle Up Wes, 2014 Australian Cup winner and Tasmania’s highest-ever stakemoney earner.