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By Tony Megahey

A little-known former interstate trainer impacting with city discards, and his lone wealthy owner who is a volunteer strapper, provide an intriguing anecdote first time at Royal Randwick for a TAB $100,000 Class 3, 1400m Highway on Saturday.

Introducing Scone’s Darren Egan who trained a recent Dubbo treble with Waterhouse and Bott discards, Lancer and Nowyunomi, purchased by millionaire businessman and country race sponsor Wayne Brown.

Casey Waddell wins aboard Lancer at Scone. Image by Bradley Photographers

He’ll lead one of his long shots onto the big stage.

Almost certain to be Lancer who is more favourably drawn and offered to Nash Rawilller, with Nowyunomi likely to be kept for next week’s Highway.

Rawiller will ride Lancer providing he isn’t required for fourth emergency Dream Runner.

Egan and Brown might be extreme outsiders in their initial Highway, but they understand what creates success on and away from the racetrack.

“Wayne’s a very successful businessman, owns an insurance company and in hotel syndicates - has an eye for a bargain and breeding; put our team together,” explained Egan, who has had a licence since 2005 training a small team at Cranbourne and then Morphettville.

“Wayne loves being a stablehand, but hasn’t put himself on the payroll, “Wayne chuckled.

“I came up here for the opportunity Racing NSW was providing with those prizemoney levels, and all the track improvements and Wayne offered me a job.”

In 2017 Darren became foreman at Scone for Stephen Jones, a long-time trainer for prolific owner Gerry Harvey, before Darren again went it alone with a dozen owned by Brown who has an extensive property at Scone.

“Scone is as good as it gets for facilities, we’ve been lucky enough to put a few together, so we’ve planned Highways for the next few weeks.”

In his initial NSW training season, Egan has landed 16 winners at an outstanding 15% strike rate.

“Lancer is flying at the moment, he was placed early in his career at Sandown and Warwick Farm so that’s strong form lines for a Highway the way he’s regained form,” Egan offered. And he’s drawn to race on pace.

“Both ex-Waterhouse and Bott - the big stables - shift them pretty quickly if they’re not city grade; you don’t expect to improve them, it’s about placement in winnable country races.“

The breeding and education are always there with those stables and Lancer is a Sepoy gelding: “The way they both settled in, we were confident they’d win races.”

Nowyunomi (by So You Think) carried 59kg to win at Dubbo, Lancer won there and at Scone with 58kg and 57 kg: “The form out of Dubbo has stood up really solid in recent Highways.”

Promising Zoo Station backs up for Gayna Williams after a recent impressive series win and the Lundholm’s Knight Driver was only beaten in the last few strides by classy Hellenism last Saturday.

Meanwhile, Egan took up the offer to train for Brown who previously had most of his horses with Rodney and Brett Robb at Nyngan.

Also, a major factor was outback icon Rodney cutting back for semi-retirement. In another open and capacity Highway, Lancer is wide in early TAB markets.

View the final fields with full form & race replays for Royal Randwick here