Albury trainer Kym Davison has celebrated his first metropolitan win on one of the biggest days of the Sydney autumn carnival, and he’s achieved it almost by default.
Davison had hoped to be running emerging three-year-old Autumn Break in the $1 million Country Championships Final (1400m) but the horse didn’t make the field.
Instead, he was an emergency, and given the requirement for the reserves to be in Sydney in case of a scratching, Davison decided to pay up to run in the Group 3 Carbine Club Stakes (1600m) as a back-up.
“First city winner, so not a bad one to crack the ice with,” Davison said.
“I was hoping to be in the next race, but great consolation.
“I saw this race and said, ‘well, we’re going up there anyway, so we’ll go and have a throw at the stumps’.”
Not only did Autumn Break ($8) deliver the goods, he did so by nosing out the Chris Waller-trained Kilman ($31), who led everywhere bar the post, with Matias ($6.50) a short head away third.
The win was a bright spot during a difficult time for the Davison family, with Kym’s brother losing his battle with illness last week.
“It’s been a hard week. We lost my brother a week ago,” he said.
“He had been unwell for a while. But you’ve got to pick yourself up.”
Davison, who has eight horses in work at Albury, said Autumn Break would be spelled and he hoped to bring him back for an early campaign tilt at The Kosciuszko (1200m) in October.
“The Kosciuszko, he’d go alright in that,” he said.
“His first start was over 1200, and he should have won that Highway (Handicap) here, that was 1200 first-up, so we’ll try to push onto that if we can.”
