By Isaac Murphy
Peter Evans' rising five-year-old Logan City has continued to defy the age barrier, winning a heat of the Racing Queensland Masters Series. In doing so, he will get a crack at $27,500 when he lines up in Thursday night's Final.
Known for his strong last sectional not his early dash Logan City flipped the script in last week’s heats getting across from a wide draw, a barrier he’ll have to overcome again this week.
“He’s going to have to do it the tough way again this week, he’s drawn the six and he has Lil Miss Pinky inside him who’s a wide runner, so I’m hoping she clears us early,” Evans said.
“If he was drawn inside I’d be very bullish about our chances of winning the race, but with the box and dogs around us it’s going to be tough, Belvedere Babe for Renald Attard will be at home in the seven and Kealoah for Selena Zammit could run a race this week.”
Dogs like Logan City are hard to find and a life long dog man like Evans knows not to take his eighteen win, eighty-two start career for granted.
“It’s a great feeling knowing he’s going to give you everything each run, I can’t remember the last time he ran a bad race you just don’t find those dogs anymore,” he said.
“This race is a great initiative from Racing Queensland because we want to encourage people to keep racing their dogs provided they are fit and healthy.”
“The prize money is good each Thursday night, but there’s only a few races so it’s nice to have a one off where the well performed veterans get a chance at a larger sling, it’s gone down very well with us trainers.”
Evans is humble when it comes to Logan City prolonged success joking that it was his astute training that had kept the dog humming, but there is no doubt his training experience has kept the dog spritely.
“I don’t take much credit, good dogs make good trainers and I don’t know what it is about him that’s provided his longevity I think he’s just a marvel,” he said.
“One thing I think is essential is knowing your dog and having seen him do it for so long it is a bit easier for me to pick up on when to ease him down or put a bit more work in.”
Evans truly has known Logan City from the start breeding the dog out of Cosmic Chief and Missing Star he hoped for a strong 520 dog and that’s what he got.
“I bought his mother Missing Star to race who unfortunately had a career ending injury, but she was a good stayer in her own right and I was keen to breed because I thought I might get a strong dog and along came Logan City,” Evans said.
“He had raw ability right from the start, he won his maiden in 24.98 over the 431 metres at Ipswich but had a bad habit for crashing to the fence, luckily that was about three years ago now so I’ve had plenty of time to straighten him out.”
Evans has been a lifer in the industry buying his first dog at eighteen and becoming heavily involved in the Goulburn Club as anything from a lure driver to vice president for several years.
His move to Beenleigh was supposed to be the end of his trainer days, but dogs like Logan City couldn’t keep him away.
“When I moved up to Beenleigh I said to myself I was going to get out of dogs, but I had an itch to scratch and started back and continue to love it as a hobby to this day,” he said.
“We’re quite similar me and the dog, we just keep coming back.”