It’s a four-and-a-half-hour trip from Hamilton to Swan Hill for trainer David Lewis, but the horseman says it’s one of his most enjoyable journeys in the business.
On Saturday Lewis will pack the truck and take two in-form mares in Ennaellie and Mistressofillusion to contest races on Swan Hill Cup night.
Lewis and his cohort of brothers and sisters – it’s a family of 10 – grew up in Ultima, about 20 miles out of Swan Hill, helping his dad David Snr train horses with his uncle Tuppy.
“As a kid we’d help train the horses out on the roads. It was a pretty quiet community then but it’s even quieter now unfortunately,” Lewis said.
“It was a lot of fun – a lot of fond memories. I love getting back to the area.”
Lewis’s dad trained horses between the 1960s and the ‘80s for limited success, but he raced some nice horses with trainer Bruce Morgan.
“Dad was more of a hobbyist with the training but he had some good ones,” Lewis says.
The family patriarch passed away eight years ago after a long battle with illness. He was buried not far from the Swan Hill trots complex.
“He’s just over the road,” Lewis said. “We all go and visit him when we get up there. He was a really good bloke; a really likable guy. He became more of a mate than an old man later in life.”
The matriarch of the Lewis clan, Marg, 83, is now David’s No.1 fan.
As a kid Lewis would attend the Geelong trots on a regular basis with his mum at Beckley Park.
“They were great times. Me and mum would go along every time when we lived down there for a while.
“She gets to the track when we go up there. She’s 83 and she’s still very active.
“We’ve got a table upstairs booked for 10 made up of family and friends, so it’ll be a great night.”
Champion reinsman Chris Alford has been booked to drive both of Lewis’s team on Saturday night.
“Mistressofillusion is very quick. She’s got a really sharp sprint. Horses like Abettorpunt (a stablemate) wouldn’t be able to sprint with her when she gets going,” Lewis said.
“Ennaellie has been working good and she should run well also but it looks a nice, even field.
“It would be fantastic to be able to win a race up there.
“We won the sprint there with Amajorjo (in 2013) and took Abettorpunt to the cup the same year but ran third. We would have loved to have won the cup but it was still a great night.”
The first race on a bumper nine-race card kicks off at 6.30pm with a new car to be given away to one lucky patron on the night.
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