A start-to-finish victory for Davey in the opening Dubbo To Wenty heat over 516 metres at Dawson Park on Thursday has showed he will be one to watch for the rich final next week.
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The Rhonda Millsteed-trained dog has been remarkably consistent during his career, winning 10 races from 19 starts, including seven in a row between September last year and February.
He was relatively untroubled after getting the lead on Thursday and raced to victory in a time of 30.17 seconds, two-and-a-quarter lengths ahead of Tango's Express, with Chasing Banjo and Perfect melody rounding out the placings.
Those four all qualify for Wednesday's $3000 final at Wentworth Park, along with the top four from the second heat of Fancy Nangar, Firebee, Eveready Girl and Choose Wisely.
Tango's Express started as the $2.90 favourite, ahead of Davey ($3.30) and Part of Me ($5.30) but had the handicap of starting from out wide.
That proved to be his undoing as Davey and Perfect Melody ($14.50) raced to the front but the favourite was forced wide and entered the back straight at the rear of the field.
He began to make up spots but Davey had already opened a five-length gap on the rest of the field and raced to the line, forcing Tango's Express to settle for second.
Millsteed said she was happy with the win and looking forward to Davey's return to Wentworth Park, after previous visits had yielded a fourth, a second and a fifth for the three-year-old.
"It is nice to make it to the final. It's good when we go to Sydney for these races because we are still racing the dogs that we race around here," she said.
"When he's in front he's pretty good but I'm never confident until he's past the post. I've been in dogs long enough to know better."
Millsteed said she expected Tango's Express to be a threat for the win but she was also wary of the competition from the other heat.
Fancy Nangar justified his $2.60 favouritism with a 29.90 second win, three-and-a-quarter lengths ahead of Firebee with a further length back to Eveready Girl and Choose Wisely.