The punters certainly thought the favourite was a good thing. Others believed it was set to be a match-race. If anything, maybe a third or fourth chance might figure if things fell into place. But very few outside the winning camp, expected a $34 chance to not just upset, but emphatically beat his more fancied rivals and claim the Group 2 Husqvarna Maitland Gold Cup.
Mottza – appropriately named for any who invested on the outsider in the feature event – pinged the lids, and while his rivals were getting into bother behind him, Mottza just kept going, and gave mother and son training team of Pat and Jackson Chaker a mammoth victory.
There may not have been a crowd there to see it, but that didn’t take any shine off the victory.
“It was a shame there were no people there tonight but it was a great night,” 22-year-old Jackson said with all NSW greyhound venues now experiencing crowd lockouts. “It’s the first group race I have been in, and to win it with mum, it means a lot.”
The Chakers have a great relationship with the dog’s owner Jeff Shrull and his former trainer in Perth John Iwanyk.
“John is a great trainer and Jeff, the owner has stuck by us for over 10 years,” he said. “When you have good people around you and we can all work as a team, and we can send dogs back and forth like we have done for years, to pick a group two like the Maitland Cup is very special.
“We brought him over especially for the Maitland Cup and we got it done.
“We only got him over a couple of weeks before the heats, and I did a bit of work with him at my slipping track and he’s just gone great.”
Jackson credited a number of the sports’ best who he has in his corner, with constantly helping him and playing a role in his achievement at Maitland.
“I’ve always had good people behind me. When you hang around the best trainers you strive to be like them. Jason Magri and Peter Lagogiane - we go to dinner once a week – and Mark Gatt … when you have got the big boys around you like that, it truly does help, and Andy Lord started me off. When you have all that behind you, it’s hard not to be good.
“But, aside from all these great people, having mum behind me is the best, and doing this with her is the main thing for me.”
The odds-on favourite, track record holder La Grand Quality, jumped well from box one and was pushing up inside his rivals behind Mottza, when checked by second elect Turbo Thomas. At that moment his Cup chances evaporated. He fell back through the field and would ultimately finish second last.
The check didn’t help Turbo Thomas either, despite being able to maintain his place in second, but by this time Mottza was a number of lengths in front and showed great tenacity down the home straight to hold off Ebby Infrared and Turbo Thomas to win in 25.08s.
Mottza has now won 30 of his 71 starts and more than $155,00 in prizemoney, but what is more impressive is that he has won races in four states - Victoria, Queensland, NSW and Western Australia.
