Their 4yr-old notched the couple’s first training win together with their first starter when scoring for driver Jonny Cox in race 3.
Edge and Buchan run the highly popular Hampden Takeaways, rated by many as one of New Zealand’s best fish and chip shops.
Last night, Buchan was left to tend to the dozens of passers-by who call into their business, while Edge set off for Forbury Park with Changed My Mind.
The trainers had given the Changeover mare a recent trial at Oamaru where she finished second.
With a lack of further trials coming up in Otago, Edge and Buchan chanced their arm and decided to start Change My Mind last night.
That decision paid off when Cox extricated the pacer from a tight spot before she produced a good finish to win.
“We took her with a young one to the trials and she was a bit further forward than we thought,” Edge said.
“So, Ngaire said ‘we will put her in at Forbury because there are not that many more trials around here’.”
“She went good enough at the trials to line up.”
Edge and Buchan acquired Change My Mind from Invercargill owner Tom Kilkelly.
“She had been used as a galloping pacemaker to educate the young ones.
“She just needed time to grow a bit and fill out and Tom had a heap of young ones to go on with,” Edge said.
Changed My Mind is not the only winner Edge and Buchan secured through Kilkelly.
The couple have won seven races with Gotta Be Downtown from the New South Wales stable of Kerry Ann Turner.
The mare won two races in New Zealand for trainers Kirstin Barclay and Paul Ellis.
Edge and Buchan are the only registered trainers at Hampden and train from a 20ha block.
Edge’s brother, Alan, won the next race on the Forbury Park programme last night.
He prepared Off The Edge, who came with a big finish to win race 4, also with Cox in the sulky.
Off The Edge survived a protest to hold his win after he and runner-up Oliver North raced tightly together in the home straight.
Black armbands were worn during last night’s meeting to acknowledge the death of former Otago trainer Keith Coutts.
Coutts, who recorded 42 wins as a trainer, including the group 1 New Zealand Trotting Free-For-All in 1992, died on Saturday.
The popular horseman, who most recently trained at Leeston, drove 25 winners in a career that spanned more than 40 years.
Coutts’ last victory as a trainer and driver came when in the 2012 Roxburgh Cup with False Promise.
