David Lewis
FOR Classic Moment, surprisingly a $14 chance, it was a case of putting in a terrific effort to turn the tables on $2.20 favourite Aston Ziebell in last Sunday’s 512-metre Newman McDonnell Memorial final at Tara Raceway.
Bred, owned and trained by Kevin Mugavin of Killarney, Classic Moment had qualified for the final after running second in a heat to Aston Ziebell at the previous Sunday meeting.
The son of Fernando Bale and More Moment looked to have set himself a fair task in the final as the field headed down the back straight.
But the rails run came at the right time for Classic Moment, at 28½ kilograms easily the smallest dog in the field and when he made his run turning for home, it appeared he was going to be hard to hold out.
That is how the race played out.
Classic Moment finished strongly to defeat the David Peckham trained Aston Ziebell by 2¼ lengths in 30.19 seconds on a track that was anything but conducive to quick times given the weather.
A further 2¾ lengths back in third spot was Aston Percival, the leader for a long way for Tarpeena owner-trainer Dita Mitchell, who had been chasing her first feature race win.
Last Sunday was the second time Mugavin had won the McDonnell Memorial, one of the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club’s longest-running feature events.
In fact, the first memorial was run at Glenburnie in 1986 when won by Kenzel Lad.
In 2019 Mugavin had been successful with Spring Value, a son of Spring Gun and Magic Matese.
Keeping it in the family, Classic Moment is a grandson of Magic Matese.
He has also won two Mount Gambier Cups – Poetic Magic successful in 2006 and Rich Shiraz in 2012.
Whelped in March 2020, Classic Moment has now won eight races from 32 starts, but according to Mugavin, it has not all been plain sailing.
“It did take me a while to get him going,” he said.
“In fact, I actually resorted to using one of my older dogs with him in a bid to get him chasing.
“And it then took him nine race starts at Mount Gambier and Warrnambool before he finally opened his winning account – two in a row as it turned out, but both in pretty slow time.
“Really, I believe on occasions you have to show a bit of patience with some of these dogs if you want to get the best out of them.
“In the case of Classic Moment I also believe that he races better on a two-bend track such as Mount Gambier rather than on the one-bend variety.”
Members of the McDonnell family – Margaret Considine and her husband Ellis and son and daughter John and Mary – again were at Tara Raceway last Sunday for the 37th running of the Newman McDonnell Memorial.
Once again, Mrs Considine could not help but marvel at the improvements that continue to be made at Tara Raceway – the track named after her father, whose perseverance and dedication contributed to greyhound racing in Mount Gambier becoming a reality.
