Loy only gained her trainers’ licence last June and dabbles with two horses.

Cheerful Dane is only a recent stable acquisition and was formerly trained by Bede Murray at Kembla Grange.

Loy gained the horse through her son, Brodie, who is a stable apprentice to Murray.

Cheerful Dane finished second at Leeton last week in his first start for Loy on an unsuitable slow track.

Loy was confident he could make amends yesterday with the track rated a dead (4).

“I was pretty confident he would go close,” Loy said.

“He is not a wet tracker and only just got beaten at Leeton last week when the track was rain-affected.

“Back on a dead track today was more to his liking and he proved too good.”

Ridden by Cameron Quilty, Cheerful Dane ($15) finished powerfully on the inside of the track to defeat Wilscot ($12) and favourite Liberty ($4.60).

He spent 12 months in the paddock after a tendon injury and only resumed in December.

Yesterday’s victory was his first since October 2012.

“I was going to lease the horse out but after yesterday have decided to keep him for myself,” she said.

“Yesterday’s field was a lot weaker company then he had been racing against recently.

“It’s always a bit of risk taking on a horse who has had a tendon injury but he is fully sound and he hasn’t shown any signs of soreness.”

Loy said she was keen to avoid the wet tracks and could head to Geelong’s synthetic track for Cheerful Dane’s next start.

Border trainers and jockeys enjoyed a successful day at Wodonga, winning four of the eight races.

Albury jockey Simon Miller took out the second aboard Tom Raks before the Brian Cox-trained Imminent won the next.

Albury trainer Martin Stein won the final race with Iceconi.