David Lewis
WARRNAMBOOL siblings Aimee and Dustin Drew will head to Mount Gambier’s Tara Raceway on Sunday with three of the four Warrnambool Greyhound Racing Club Border Challenge final representatives.
This follows last Thursday night’s 450-metre heat at Wannon Park where the Aimee Drew trained Incinerator led all the way to defeat Dustin Drew’s pair, Aston Marvel and Max Power, in a time of 25.31 seconds.
Also through to the final is Inga Zach, trained at Gnotuk by Vince Inguanti, the breeder of Way To Stand, a winner at Tara Raceway last Thursday.
By Fernando Bale out of Flowing, a winner of 10 races and $33,000 in stakemoney, Incinerator is owned at Pearcedale by Amanda Tullio who also raced his grand-dam, Veetee Express, winner of the 2014 Mount Gambier Cup.
According to Dustin Drew, Incinerator is a smart young pup but would probably need a trial at Tara Raceway to be any chance in the final over 512 metres.
“He’s had only eight starts, which have resulted in four wins – one of those in the city – and three seconds,” he said.
“Ideally, a look at the Mount Gambier track tomorrow morning would have been the way to go but from a racing point of view there’s a fair bit happening over here at the moment so as far as trialling is concerned we’re playing it by ear.”
Aston Marvel, described by Drew as a good handy dog that would be some chance in the final, went into the Warrnambool heat as an odds-on favourite.
The son of Aston Kimetto and Aston Lolita made up a fair amount of ground in the run home, eventually going down by just over a length.
But as far as Drew was concerned, the run of the race came from Max Power, a son of Bella Infrared and Aston Selena and raced by the Future Syndicate which is managed by Ken Hinkley, the Port Adelaide Football Club’s senior coach.
“He was only fairly away from box one and then shortly after was checked back to near last before finishing the race off well to be beaten by less than four lengths,” he said.
“To me, it looks like he’ll run 600 metres.”
As far as the Border Challenge is concerned, Aimee and Dustin will now be hoping to be able to fly the flag for their father, Ray, who 12 months ago died at the age of 73 after a 50-year involvement in greyhound racing.
Back on December 5, 2019 at Warrnambool he had been part of the inaugural Border Challenge with Aston Sultan who reached the final and finished a close third behind Phil Lenehan’s Lektra Fireball and Super Panda.
This year is the first time the Border Challenge has been conducted since 2019 due to Covid and border issues.
Meanwhile, Dustin Drew also has his sights set on the forthcoming Topgun Stayers (730m) with Untapped.
The Group 1 event will be run at The Meadows in conjunction with the Topgun (525m) on Saturday, November 5.
Prizemoney breakdown for the stayers’ event will be $75,000, $22,000, $11,000, $5500 and $2000 each for fifth to eighth.
Drew achieved his biggest success in greyhound racing in May this year when Untapped won the Group 1 Sandown Cup (715m).
By Aston Dee Bee out of Mepunga Fame, Untapped has now won more than $280,000 in stakemoney.
Following Sunday’s Border Challenge heat at Tara Raceway, Wind Burn Flash, Departure Gate, Banjo Bert and Aston Marlon will represent Mount Gambier in the $5800 final.
The local club will also provide the reserves – Rhonda Lily and Aston Ziebell.
