It was a day of breakthroughs at Mudgee Race Club on Saturday.
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Melvyn Maseyk, a jockey who enjoyed a huge amount of success in his home country of India previously, scored his first win on the picnic circuit while in the day's feature Good Host ended a drought of more than two years.
Maseyk is chasing more opportunities after taking out the day's feature sprint, the Collaroy Cup (1000m), with the Dar Lunn-trained Zoutenant.
Maseyk rode as a professional and scored more than 200 winners in India while his experience also included several prestigious cup wins in Sri Lanka while he's also had three rides in France.
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Now aged 42, Maseyk came to Australia five years ago and for the past year has been a trackwork rider for leading Newcastle trainer Paul Perry.
Starting on the picnic circuit last July he has only picked up a few rides and mainly on rank outsiders however that could change with his good display on the Dubbo-trained Zoutenant.
Allowed time to settle at the tail of the nine-horse field, Zoutenant ($7) was brought down the outside by Maseyk to swoop on the leaders and win by a neck from Sestina (Jody Hughes, $6), with a head to third-placed I Am Dynamic (Ricky Blewitt, $4.80).
"I would like to get more opportunities at the picnics to prove myself in Australia and eventually receive a professional licence", Maseyk said after the win.
Good Host got the job done in the day's main race, the Bligh Picnic Cup (1850m).
Now trained by Janelle Galea at Dubbo, Good Host went to Mudgee having not win since taking out the western heat of the Country Championships in March of 2018 for previous trainer Justin Stanley.
Good Host (Blewitt, $11) went to the early lead and held on grimly for a half-length win over Austin (Maddison Wright, $1.70 favourite) and Bel Attrait (Michael Wade, $7).
Blewitt also won the Class B Handicap (1100m) with the Sharon Jeffries-trained On The Delta ($10).
Dubbo trainer Connie Grieg missed out in the cup with Bel Attrait but got to see Cat Walk Queen (Rowena Dillon, $8) take out the Class 3 Trophy Handicap (1400m).
Other winners on the day were the Bathurst duo of Skipper Joe, trained by Dean Mirfin, and Paul Theobald's Dobe Super.