ONE FOR THE TRUE BELIEVERS …

Living proof that nice guys don’t always finish last, take a gander at Bart Sinclair’s report in Sunday’s Courier Mail.

Pore over the names of the winning trainers at Eagle Farm on Oaks Day and spot the standout.
Plonked in the middle of Mike Moroney, Rob Heathcote, Tony Noonan, Gerald Ryan, Graeme Rogerson, Matthew Smith and John O’Shea etc. is Craig Stott.
I’d wager not too many at the Oaks knew anything of Stott’s background before he landed some nice bets on Mystical Grey in the Spear Chief Handicap.
Stott explained he and wife Barbara moved to the Sunshine Coast late last year to live a peaceful life in retirement and play a lot of golf.
But the obvious passion they shared in racing and breeding did not abate with their change of scenery.
Stott has held a licence in Victoria where he ran a sheep and cattle property and dabbled with training his own horses at Oaklands Junction, not far from the Melbourne airport.
Mystical Grey is the only horse he has in work at the Sunshine Coast but soon the grey's half-sister will be going into work to double the stable size.
The Stotts bred Mystical Grey, a gelding from the Snaadee mare Mysterieux.
“Unfortunately Mysterieux died foaling last year,” Barbara Stott revealed while her husband was tending to the strapper’s duties with his winner.
Seeing hobby enthusiasts successful on a major carnival day is good for the industry.
It gives hope to every person who gets out of bed pre-dawn every morning and does the hard yakka, that the little guy in this business can have his moment in the sun.