PORTLAND trainer Nicole Stanley’s record-breaking 111 winners at Tara Raceway last year had been the result of a real team effort.
Speaking last Sunday at Tara Raceway where she received the 2017 Leading Trainer and Greyhound of the Year awards, Stanley acknowledged the great support of her owners as well as her behind the scenes staff Lizzie and Tracey.
“Nifty (Lenehan) has also been a great help, especially as we have so many to trial on a regular basis, while the assistance of Mo Canala and Richard Clayfield on race days has been much appreciated,” she said.
She also confirmed Greyhound of the Year Fiorelli Rose had been retired and the daughter of Premier Fantasy x Tarks Jewel would return to owners Angela Langton and Sue Smith and possibly be mated with Fernando Bale.
Fiorelli Rose won nine races for the year at Tara Raceway, including the Anniversary Cup, which Stanley described as the highlight of what had been a very successful year.
Meanwhile, the Stanley owned and trained Berry Bling, who won nine races as well as running 11 minor placings in a 38-start career, is shortly due on season and will be mated with leading sire Barcia Bale.
By Lochinvar Marlow x Lady Bling, Berry Bling won the 2016 SA Country Cup at Strathalbyn when representing the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club.
Chilly Kiss just warming up
IT is not that Chilly Kiss had been racing badly, because she had not.
Five starts this year for five minor placings suggested it was only a matter of time before she broke through for another win.
But surely last Sunday’s Metal Worx feature over 512 metres – a final that contained some pretty handy grade five greyhounds – was not going to be the race that saw the daughter of Spring Gun and Chilly Babe finally break through for her first win since early November.
Punters certainly did not think so, Chilly Kiss going to the boxes a despised $66 tote outsider, although “only” $34 on fixed odds – these prices, mind you, despite running Sunday’s even money favourite, Signal Peak, to three-and-a-half lengths in a heat the previous week.
As it turned out, reputations counted for nothing as Chilly Kiss flew the start from box five and was never headed, eventually running out a five-and-a-half length winner over Blazing Moment and Xtreme Notice in a personal best time of 29.84 seconds.
Long-time Allendale East greyhound participant Connie Miller, who trains the brindle bitch for her Adelaide-based 16-year-old granddaughter Clarissa, would have loved to have been at Tara Raceway to savour this win.
However, she is currently recovering at the Mount Gambier Hospital from a second hip replacement in only a matter of months.
Representing Miller on Sunday at Tara Raceway was David Peckham who admitted the win had come as a real surprise.
“She’d been going alright but I certainly did not rate her much chance in the grade five final,” he said.
“Judging by the time she recorded today, though, a couple of recent 600 metre runs seemed to have topped her off nicely.”
Chilly Kiss has now won six races, two of those for Clarissa Miller – no doubt suitably impressed by the final’s added prizemoney – who took her over as a give away last October.
Speaking later in the week, Peckham said in view of Chilly Kiss’s sub-30 second win last Sunday they would probably run her in a heat of the forthcoming Mount Gambier Cup although a trip to Angle Park was not out of the question in order the young owner could catch up with her favourite greyhound.
