Greyhound racing would be nothing without its dreamers and believers. So when you go to traps taking on the best marathon runner in the country, you have to keep the faith. On Friday night, 25-1 chance Mohican Tara struck a blow for the ever hopefuls by landing the £10,000 WKH Diamond Stakes Final at Oxford.

This is how she did it.

Tara is trained by Sean McDonald, a South Welshman who cut his teeth on flaps in his homeland half a century ago. His kennels are around 20 minutes from the Valley track at Ystrad Mynach. As the flaps closed, Sean and son Nathan started running a few at Hall Green and eventually ended up at Swindon where they have around 40 on the strength.

Tara made her last graded performance there just three weeks ago in A5 – and was beaten. But the mood was very diffrent on Friday when Sean landed his first ever Cat 1 final.

Sean said: “It was a great night for the kennel. For many years I worked as a gas fitter and Nathan held the licence. We’ve sort of swapped over and Nathan is back working in the gas industry. We have a very good team here; my head lad Dalton Smith deserves great credit for the win. There were so many people got in touch after the race to congratulate us, including Kevin Hutton who texted Dalton to say how well he though Tara had run.”

Bought as a pup from Ian Greaves, Tara has taken her time to come to the fore but Sean didn’t think his outsider was quite the forlorn hope that others did. He backed her at 9-2 without the favourite but also had a few pounds on at 20-1 and 40-1.

He said: “I know she was running against the best greyhound in the country over that distance, but you can’t judge her on the A5 Swindon form. She was finishing so fast after the winning line that she would be 20-25 lengths clear at the pick-up. I joked that we almost had time to put her coat back on before the others arrived.

“Also, for anyone who was watching the heats, Tara had started to ease went they went along the backstraight second time. It was her first race over the longer distance and she was expecting the hare to stop. Once she got going again, I actually thought she was catching Space Jet.

“Besides, she is only just a babby. While Space Jet is nearly four, Tara was only two in December. She can only get better and can hopefully be a big player in the next year or so.”

Tara will now have a couple of weeks on the easy list but future plans include the Crayford’s 1,058 metre, 12-bend open on the Golden Jacket supporting card on February 18.