David Lewis
FOR Allendale East trainer David Peckham, his success in the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club’s Christmas Cup goes back to the inaugural running of the 512-metre event in 2011 when Napoleon Wiz was successful in a time of 30.20 seconds.
Then, a couple of years later, he won the Christmas Cup for a second time, with Bourne Again running down Flaming Gold to win by less than a length in 30.41 seconds.
Fast forward to 2019 and the event, by then known as the Williams Crane Hire Christmas Cup, looked to be a two-dog race between the odds-on Smart Knocka and Peckham’s Squishy Pea.
But it was Squishy Pea who led all the way when defeating the Tracie Price-trained favourite by two lengths in a race record 29.63 seconds.
Giant’s Flash had certainly looked the one to beat in this year’s cup.
Fifteen wins locally, a track record – twice – over 512 metres of 29.19 seconds and later a 600-metre record of 34.69 seconds before lowering it to 34.58 seconds told the story.
As it turned out, Sunday’s cup was somewhat reminiscent of the one back in 2019.
This time it was the Ray Borda owned, Peckham trained Aston Ziebell who led Price’s Giant’s Flash going out of the first turn.
From then on the January 2020 whelping was never headed, eventually running out a 3¼ length winner over the $1.22 favourite in 29.34 seconds – another race record.
And cheers from the Bourne Kennels support team of Dita Mitchell and Christine Yourgules.
Aston Ziebell, a son of Aston Kimetto and Aston Dinnigan, has now won nine races since joining Peckham’s kennels in June this year.
The black dog’s lead-in to the Christmas Cup, according to his trainer, had probably been a little different.
“After he had run second to Classic Moment in the Newman McDonnell final last month, and given that he had previously won over 600 metres in quick time, I decided to try him for the first time over 732 metres,” Peckham said.
“He certainly gave them something to chase but did knock up in the end.
“For all that, he appeared to pull up pretty well so the following week I dropped him back to 512 metres, which he duly won in a best of day 29.58 seconds.
“Finally, he ran a 1¾ length fourth in a Free For All over 530 metres at Murray Bridge prior to the Christmas Cup.
“Actually, he hasn’t really looked back since that 732-metre run, so maybe it toughened him up.”
Earlier in the day, Aston Bullet, raced in the same interests as the Christmas Cup winner, defeated Louie Lou in a keen tussle by two lengths in the Santa Sprint (400m).
For Peckham, it was a case of going one better than last year when Out Of Gas finished second to Sevilla in the Santa Sprint.
