By Isaac Murphy
Maywyn Cash turned heads last week as the quickest qualifier for the Mick Byrne Memorial Fifth Grade Final and Greenbank trainer Robert Essex thinks his two-year-old can repeat the dose this week in a race named after an old friend.
“To make any final in any grade is great, but in a feature like the The Mick Byrne is an honour, I knew Mick for quite some time as and it would mean a lot to run a race,” Essex said.
The veteran trainer was more than familiar with your average heat and final series but said a race like this held far more weight.
“You get plenty of fifth grade heats and finals, but not many that mean too much,” Essex said.
“Mick was obviously a big part of the industry and to win a race named after him I’d be extremely flattered, and it gives the dog a chance to get a feature on his resume as well.”
After his 29.86 romp from box seven last week you would think Essex would have liked a similar draw, but the trainer is keen to see what his young dog can do out of the red this week.
“I must admit I’m not one hundred percent sure at this stage of his career whether he prefers the inside or the outside, at Ipswich he likes to run wide and cross over, but as everyone knows they are very different tracks,” he said.
“From box one if he can just hold his position without any major checks around that first bend I think he’ll be very very hard to beat.”
Essex bought the dog as a pup off fellow trainer Brian Druery with bloodlines he was confident would produce good dogs and Maywyn Cash hasn’t disappointed.
“Brian Druery bred him out of a very good bitch Kyan’s Assassin who won a stack of races at Capalaba and she had a litter with Dyna Double One who I’ve always been a fan of, so I was quick on the trigger to pick him up,” Essex said.
“He showed me pretty early that he had something extra about him when he was breaking thirteen for his middle sectional at Ipswich, which you just don’t see with young dogs.”
“That came to the fore in his heat last week when he was able to find the top at the post he went into overdrive down the back I was really impressed to see him do that at Albion Park where he’ll be based for the immediate future.”
At just over two-years of age the dog looks to have a big future and that means putting him in the best races approaching a Albion Park over the Winter Carnival.
“There are ample opportunities out there with age races for him at the moment, he’ll be a lock for the Flying Amy and if he comes through that series well I wouldn’t mind having a shot at a Brisbane Cup though he may struggle getting a start,” Essex said.
“It’s been perfect timing getting him to Albion a couple of weeks ago and building confidence last week I’m pretty confident he can mix it at the next level.”
Last Thursday night was a double delight for Essex with kennel favourite Maywyn’s Noise finally cracking a win at Albion Park at start twenty-six.
“He’s an old favourite Maywyn’s Noise he tries his guts out every time he goes around, we first took him to Albion Park about twelve months ago and tried him, but he just kept running into dogs who’d run sub thirty and he could never quite crack it,” he said.
“He just needs that twenty or thirty metres out of the boxes with nothing impeding him and it took twenty-six tries, but it was all worth it when he found the line last week.”