A grey start to the day at Ruakaka Racecourse yesterday was even more gloomy for horse-trainer Donna Logan.
It began with a phone call from her husband and fellow trainer Dean Logan in Brisbane, with news that one of her horses had broken a leg.
But the Ruakaka woman's anguish turned to
joy when two-year old The Mooseisloose won the feature race, the second in the Storm Creek Triple Crown 1200m series, by a length.
"I've had a pretty awful day - until now," Logan said after the race, with tears in her eyes.
"Well done Mummy," Logan's young son Robert said, as he rushed up to his mum and gave her a hug.
"Thanks darling," she said, kissing him on the forehead.
The win has special significance because, if she'd had her way, the owner of The Mooseisloose would never have bought him.
"Craig (owner Craig Dawson) wanted to buy him, and asked me what I thought ... and I told him no," Logan said. "He's a real handful of a horse."
Logan received a congratulatory phone call from Dean after the race, who had some advice for her with regards to buying future horses.
"He said, `Get Craig to the next sales, I think he's on to something'."
The Mooseisloose was indeed a handful, Dawson said, but one of his favourite horses.
"He's a mad bugger, but that's where the name came from - even though people say I named him after myself."
Dawson said he was thrilled with the win and now glad he went against Logan's advice and bought the horse. "But she is the boss most of the time."
Last month's winner of the first Triple Crown race, Ardmore-trained Mufhasa, was near the front for most of the 1200m on a track that trainer Steve McKee had picked he would do well on.
"Conditions will actually suit him, if it's a bit boggy underfoot," McKee had said before the race.
However the day belonged to The Mooseisloose, who Dawson has big plans for - in his dreams.
"Next stop Melbourne. Then Dubai. And maybe that little race they do at Ascot."
The next Whangarei Racing Club meet at Ruakaka is on Saturday, July 14.
