The David Hayes-trained gelding, who started a $4.20 favourite, went out after the well-backed Deltona ($4.60) in the straight and claimed the Kevin Moses-trained runner in the final few strides to win by a half-head.

Wodonga galloper He’s An Angel ($26) proved he could be a star of the future by running a game race for third, two lengths away.

Growl’s win adds the Hayes name to the list of Gold Cup winners and gives Melbourne jockey Brad Rawiller a one-from-one strike-rate in the race.

Growl entered the race as the best-credentialled runner with more than $760,000 and several group wins and placings to his name.

He finished less than five lengths behind top-line galloper Zipping in the $1 million Australian Cup last start.

Rawiller knew the cup was his at the top of the straight.

“When I straightened and got to the outside and saw nothing had kicked away from us, I knew he’d win,” Rawiller said.

“I came here with a lot of confidence.

“I rode him for the 10 days after the Australian Cup and he’s been a really happy horse.”

Rawiller, who won the 2004 Wodonga Cup aboard Green Pick, said the Albury Gold Cup would hold a special place on his mantelpiece.

“I love getting to the country cups and the Albury cup is the best country race in NSW and maybe Australia, so I’m certainly very happy to go home a winner,” he said.

Continued page 112 More reports — pages 112, 113

In the lead up to the cup the Hayes stable admitted there was a question mark over Growl’s ability to handle Albury’s clockwise circuit after he had failed at several attempts at Hong Kong’s Sha Tin, another clockwise track.

However, Hayes’s chief Flemington foreman Bruno Rouge-Serret said yesterday’s win gave Hayes the confidence to chase some of Sydney’s Easter carnival riches, possibly the $2.25 million BMW at Rosehill next Saturday,