And she says her late father, George, “has a lot to answer for” — albeit tongue-in-cheek.
“In the late 1960s, Dad bought a couple of puppies while I was growing up in Lakemba, in the western suburbs of Sydney,” Powell said.
“And it’s been non-stop ever since.”
Powell said her father was also a “best friend”.
“We were always at the races together … sometimes I think he’s ‘up there’ helping me along with the greyhounds.”
Roll on five decades and Powell has had a distinguished career as a greyhound breeder, owner and trainer.
She’s also well known for starting the “Outrageous” greyhound naming prefix.
She also bred eight-time Group race staying finalist Just Friends, who was owned by her late partner Peter Acers, who died in December following a battle with cancer.
Powell relocated from Bargo in NSW’s Southern Highlands to the dairy farming community of Stanhope about four years ago.
Since then, she has trained Victorian city winners Wet And Wild and One Plus Two.
But tonight she takes on the sport’s elite greyhound stayers as caretaker trainer of What About It in a heat of the Group One Sandown Cup (715 m).
(What About It will line up in race two, box two at 6.27 pm.)
“She’s down here because NSW greyhound racing adopted a regional model due to the coronavirus pandemic,” Powell said.
“Her owner-trainer, Michael Patterson, drove 17 hours from Iluka (on the NSW North Coast) and dropped her off to me in Seymour.”
Powell and Patterson still share a close bond.
“We go back a long way, we were neighbours as children and he used to walk me to school,” Powell said.
And Powell is not daunted by the prospect of meeting Sandown’s 715 m track record-holder Here’s Tears.
“She didn’t arrive fully fit, but I’ve had her now for around six weeks…I give her a fair chance,” Powell said.
“I’ve just got it in my mind that she’s going to get out and lead … I’ll just be holding my breath over the last 50 m.”
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