Mocito Rojo delivers a birthday present for his owner

Wayne T. Davis will turn 90 on Friday, but the owner’s birthday celebration started in earnest last Saturday night at Evangeline Downs when he won the track’s signature race, the $100,000 Evangeline Mile, for the second year in a row with Mocito Rojo.

“He’s the best one I’ve ever had,” said Davis.

Mocito Rojo also is one of the top older horses in the region. The 5-year-old was winning his third straight stakes – behind the Grade 3, $300,000 Steve Sexton Mile at Lone Star Park and the $60,000 Owner Appreciation Cup at Delta Downs – and improved his record to 15 for 23 with earnings of $544,750.

Davis, a native of Plain Dealing, La., has 20 horses in training. They are based at Evangeline with trainer Shane Wilson. Davis got into the sport years after establishing an oil and gas company with the late John Doles Jr. Davis also is in the insurance business. While he keeps active on those business fronts, much of his focus is on his racing operation.

“I took it up as a retirement thing 19 or 20 years ago,” Davis said. “We’re a good team, Shane and I. What we’re always trying to do is upgrade. We’re claiming, buying privately.”

Mocito Rojo was a $10,000 claim out of his debut Dec. 21, 2016 at Delta. He won that day, and has since captured 14 races for Davis and Wilson. In the Evangeline Mile, he won a three-way photo by a nose and equaled his best career Beyer Speed Figure, a 95.

“To me, I thought that was the hardest I’d seen him fight out of the 15 wins he has,” said Wilson.

Wilson said Mocito Rojo was in a much longer drive than desired because of how the race unfolded. In the stretch, he had to fend off the late tandem of shippers Title Ready and favorite Pioneer Spirit.

“They were getting it the last eighth of a mile,” Wilson said of the trio. “It was a hard race, but we knew it would be whenever you get those kinds of horses.”

Davis was on hand with 24 family members. The early birthday celebration took place in a pair of suites atEvangeline.

The next stop is West Virginia. Davis and Wilson said Mocito Rojo will be pointed for the Grade 3, $200,000 West Virginia Governor’s Stakes on Aug. 3 at Mountaineer Park.

Davis earned a degree in agricultural education from Louisiana State University in 1950, but rather than teach he decided to study geology at Centenary College of Louisiana. It set him up for a career in the oil and gas industry just as his first horse, Jackie’s Bidawalk, took him down a path in racing that has led to Mocito Rojo.

“She just kind of got it all started,” Davis said of Jackie’s Bidawalk, a six-time winner who is now 20. “She was a heck of a little horse. She was a lot of fun. I still have her.”

Wilson started training for Davis about 10 years ago and has grown close with the owner.

“He’s like family,” Wilson said. “He comes down and watches my sons’ football games. We go on fishing trips together. My children look at him as a grandfather.”

Wilson added it’s particularly satisfying to see the success Davis is having with Mocito Rojo.

“It’s sure special,” said Wilson.