David Lewis
IT has been a couple of years now since local sportsman Kevin “KD” Douglas came up with a suggestion that perhaps the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club – which conducts more than 100 TAB meetings a year – could throw its support behind some local charities.
The Sunset Community Kitchen was the first recipient by way of some greyhound trainers and catchers donating a fee to the “Catch for Cash” promotion and this till continues today.
While that was going on, Douglas had also been engaged in a friendly tipping competition with a couple of other race track regulars.
“Why not expand this tipping competition – I’m sure we could get some of the regulars to throw in a few dollars for a designated charity,” he said.
“Also, I’m sure they would be more than happy with the bragging rights that would go with it.”
And so the Tara Tipsters were born.
Other local charities to benefit have been Foodbank, The Visually Impaired Club of Mount Gambier, the Grantville Court Thrift Shop and Four Reasons Why.
Representatives from those charities were on course to receive a cheque and, in some cases, to witness greyhound racing for the first time.
It was only last Sunday first-timer Trudi Shelton from Four Reasons Why was at Tara Raceway with her family to receive a $2000 cheque following the running of the Tara Tipsters Cup.
Four Reasons Why was founded by Shelton in 2017.
The Mount Gambier local has been tirelessly serving her community since 2016 in her efforts to warm local children in need during winter with the Mount Gambier ‘Winter Wear for Kids in Need’ campaign.
She was nominated and won the community leader award through women in business for her dedication and volunteering to serve her community.
The Tara Tipsters Cup final was raced over 512 metres and saw Captain Larry – raced by the Ross Schurgott managed Nineofus Syndicate and trained at Allendale East by David Peckham – enter the race on the back of a quick heat win in 29.47 seconds the previous Sunday.
The son of El Grand Senor x Chill Easy ran right up to that effort with another all-the-way win, this time over Eternal Ten by 2½ lengths in 29.48 seconds.
The next four-month Tara Tipsters competition, in support of Claro – enabling brighter futures -kicked off yesterday.
Sharing the early lead are Richard Clayfield, John Little and Noel Perry on 26 points.
However, competition heavyweights predicted the trio’s time at the top would probably be short-lived.
