Our Boy Malachi reaches for the Starlight Stakes at Rosehill From Rocky to Rosehill: Jay Ford and Our Boy Malachi score. Have a chat to owner-breeder Colin Donovan about Our Boy Malachi and the language is raw and can become a bit blue, but then again he is living the dream. He is the first to admit he does not know how long it might all go on for having had a stroke a couple of months ago. The state of his health will stop him from being there when his star runs in the Starlight Stakes at Rosehill on Saturday. "I'm just a bloke from the bush who was trying to breed one to win a couple of races in Rockhampton," Donovan says. He is a bit better than that and then everyone wanted to tell me what to do with my horse. After he won about 10, all the good judges in Queensland came out offering their advice. I said to them after a while if you want to do me a favour, f--- off. Our Boy Malachi is lucky to even be around as his dam, Rusticate, suffered from cervical cancer during the pregnancy, dying only 15days after giving birth. It left Our Boy Malachi to be raised by a nursing mare but Donovan still speaks with pride about his ill-fated broodmare. "She goes back to Ada Hunter, that's Kingston Town family, it is where his talent comes from probably," he said. Michael [Hawkes] knew Rusticate because they trained her, which was impressive. I have had a few horses from her but I decided to send her back to Top Echelon at Stan Johnston's place [Craiglea Stud] because he is a good mate of mine. He was really worried about her and once Our Boy Malachi arrived he was relieved because of the problems she was having. Unfortunately she couldn't pull through. Our Boy Malachi has found his way to Sydney and Team Hawkes after 13 wins from 15 starts, mainly around Rockhampton and Mackay. He added another win, at Rosehill, since arriving in Sydney. It is clear Donovan is not one to suffer fools but he wanted to give the now six-year-old his chance when he came to the big smoke. "I had a mate who knew Michael Hawkes, so he gave me the number and I rang him," Donovan said. I said to him 'I have this horse that isn't a champion but he is very good' and would he like to train [Our Boy Malachi]? He said 'yes'. The main thing for me was to win a Rocky Newmarket and he did that twice and let my mate [trainer] John O'Sing take him as far as he possibly could. He did that. I still wanted to give the horse his chance, so I went down and met Michael and John [Hawkes] and they were great blokes. I just said to them, 'you guys are the trainers', straight away and the horse left Rocky the next day. I just want to learn from them because they are pretty good at the caper. Donovan put $25,000 in a special bank account and said when it was gone he would bring Our Boy Malachi home. He has been down there for a few months and there is more in the bank now than when we started. I just wait to hear from Michael and it is bit exciting for a boy from the bush to have one in Sydney. The other day he was even-money. I thought, 'how good is that? We haven't seen that price up here. Then I thought, 'it is in Sydney, is he that good?"' It is a bright spot in Donovan's life at the moment after he woke one morning having had a stroke. I got up one morning and I was stuffed. I had to go to the doctor's because I couldn't put one foot in front of another. I can't fly at the moment because of the stroke and I'm seeing all these doctors all the time, it is a bit of pain in the arse. I just want to get better to come down and enjoy having a horse good enough to win in Sydney.