'Team Mackinnon' chasing their first city winner

By Glenn Davis

The father and daughter training partnership of Stewart and Taylah Mackinnon are hopeful promising filly Allow Me can give them their first city winner at Eagle Farm on Saturday.

Allow Me will be striving to maintain her unblemished record in the QTIS Three-Year-Old Benchmark 70 Handicap over 1200 metres.

The daughter of Spirit Of Boom made a big impression on debut rattling home for a dominant win in a two-year-old maiden over 1000 metres at the Sunshine Coast on July 16.

The Mackinnons started their training partnership last October and have a team of 10 horses in work at Caloundra.

They celebrated their biggest win recently when Wine Not Roses claimed the Kilcoy Cup in June.

Taylah and Stewart join the Toowoomba-based Tony and Maddysen Sears as father and daughter training partnerships in Queensland.

The 23-year-old Taylah Mackinnon formerly worked with leading Caloundra trainer Stuart Kendrick and Darryl Hansen before joining forces with her father.

“I used to work for Stu Kendrick and Darryl Hansen and I still work as a vet nurse at Caloundra,” she said.

“I’m really enjoying training with Dad and hopefully we’re a chance of getting our first city win together.”

Stewart Mackinnon has been in the racing industry for over 40 years after a long and successful association as foreman for the late Bruce McLachlan before branching out on his own.

'Team Mackinnon' has booked Ben Thompson to ride Allow Me and are confident the filly will be competitive.

“This is a step up for her but she’s a good chance,” Taylah said.

“She did a lot wrong at her first start when she was very green but she hasn’t gone backwards since.”

Allow Me is raced by former Victorian trainer Craig Stott who came to Queensland with one horse, Mystical Grey, to retire on the Sunshine Coast a few years ago.

While Stott never won at the highest level, Mystical Grey was an 11-time winner including the Listed Spear Chief at Eagle Farm in 2011.

Stott bred Allow Me who is out of his former race mare Mystical Bel.

Stott was a former senior marketing executive for Ansett Australia and was a sheep and cattle farmer for many years before training.

He bred horses while in Victoria at Balbethan Stud near Oaklands Junction outside Melbourne and stood Caulfield Cup winner Bunratty Castle at his stud.