David Lewis
CONTESTING the Commercial Hotel Stake, Super Cobra took the time honours in last Thursday’s Fast Forward heats for 1-4 wins greyhounds at Mount Gambier’s time-graded meeting at Tara Raceway.
Owned by Ben Weidenbach of Cockatoo Valley and trained locally at Moorak by Jason Newman, the son of Keybow and Velocity Lilly led for most of the 400-metre journey in the last of the five heats when clocking 23.20 seconds.
With the fastest eight greyhounds from the heats qualifying for next Thursday’s Category 2 prizemoney final – irrespective of finishing position – it was a case of the first five in Super Cobra’s race going through.
Joining him are Saint Ollie 23.40, Hot Cadillac 23.44, Captain Bender 23.51 and Waffle House 23.57.
Also into the final are Mrs. Watson 23.55 (first), Marcus Moloney 23.56 (second) and Bungaloo Josh 23.63 (first).
The reserves will come from Little Cadillac, Raspberry Kiss and Cadillac Rocks.
Super Cobra’s win had been a while coming for connections.
In fact it was back in April at the local track that he had last won, prior to sustaining an injury which, according to Newman, was always going to keep the black dog off the track for some time.
“It was at the end of May that he strained an Achilles tendon,” Newman said.
“This was going to require a fair amount of rehab so he returned to Ben’s property, but by mid-September he was ready to race again.”
Newman opted for a 390-metre grade 5 at a Warrnambool Saturday morning meeting on September 17 but the return to racing did not go quite to plan.
“Jumping from box five, he fell shortly after the start but fortunately no real harm was done,” Newman said.
“Needless to say, it was pleasing to see him back among the winners on Thursday and given the time he ran, he should be right in the mix in next Thursday’s final.”
