The tiny town of Junction Village and its surrounds were jumping for joy on Saturday night after Canya Mayhem scored an emphatic victory in the time-honoured $1m Group 1 Melbourne Cup (515m) at Sandown Park.
Trainer Jess Hopkins lived out a childhood dream by winning the biggest race on the Australian greyhound racing calendar, becoming just the tenth female trainer to win the classic.
Jumping from box two, Canya Mayhem pinged handsomely once the lids went up, leading all the way in a time of 29.15.
The win was Hopkins’ second Group 1 success in just 12 months, following her Topgun Stayers triumph with Canya All Class last year.
Hopkins is heavily involved in both greyhound and thoroughbred racing, working for Grand Syndicates during the day and training a small team of five dogs from her Junction Village headquarters.
Hopkins was still shaking when interviewed after the race, recalling an interview that great jockey Damien Oliver had with John Letts after his first Melbourne Cup win aboard Doriemus in 1995.
“As a kid, fully into horse racing and dog racing, my earliest memory is Ollie saying ‘Lettsy, I’ve just won the cup’; and now I’ve just won the cup…it’s something I’ve always wanted to say,” Hopkins said with a beaming smile.
“He’s just a dream this dog, he’s no fuss, he’s no frills; there’s not that hype that there was with (Canya) All Class, and the pressure with him, he just does everything right.
“Tonight, we were walking out and he was just wagging his tail…I was like, ‘it is a pretty serious thing we’re about to do Sammy’.
“He got it done though.”
Hopkins said the dream result was the product of a lifetime engagement in the sport.
She had been dreaming of this before she could walk or talk.
“Since I was born, I was born into greyhound racing; I was in hospital for the first two weeks of my life and then I think I was at the track the next day,” she said.
“There’s a photo of me up in the kennels, about a year old.”
Female trainers dominated the great race, with the Kayla Cottrell-trained Dashing Slay finishing powerfully into second place.
The Jeff Britton-trained Valenzuela used box-one to advantage; earning a nice pay cheque in third place.
