David Lewis
AN impressive win by Tanamera in last Sunday’s time-honoured Sims Family Memorial maiden (512 metres) at Tara Raceway was the highlight of a big day for Moorak training team Jason Newman and Melissa Freitag.
Chasing back-to-back memorial wins after Strike Eagle’s success 12 months ago, Tanamera led all the way when defeating Lorraine Goodwin’s Tinker Vogue by 4¼ lengths in 30.23 seconds.
By Mepunga Blazer out of Shared Equity, a winner of 31 races and $290,000 in prize money, the white and black dog is owned in Adelaide by Lena Dureikina whose partner Tim Aloisi is well known in greyhound racing circles.
Aloisi, who won the 2020 Mount Gambier Cup with Sunset Milo, purchased Tanamera for the “right price” after he had incurred a failing to chase suspension at Geelong in October last year.
A month later he was at Moorak and shortly after showed signs of better things to come when running 30.24 seconds in a satisfactory trial (512m) at Tara Raceway.
But, according to Newman, there had been a few issues along the way with Tanamera.
“There were a few injury problems with him and leading into the memorial we’d been treating him three times a day,” he said.
“Also, in a bid to keep him focused on the job ahead we’d had him at the Saturday morning trials the day prior for a jump out.
“It was terrific to win back-to-back Sims Memorials and for Lena to collect her first presentation rug.
“Also, we thank the Sims family for their continued support of this long-running event.”
The Sims name is synonymous with the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing and Coursing Club Inc. – Col Sims the club’s inaugural life member in 1978.
In 1994, Graeme, Ian and Val Sims received life membership.
Complementing Newman and Freitag’s big day was three winners with the Bernardo x Dusseldorp littermates – Paw Some Sloane, Paw Some Storm and Mr. Anderson.
“That was a timely treble given that Dusseldorp has just been confirmed as being in pup to Sentenced,” Newman said.
By Jury out of Velocity Spice, Sentenced raced on only 14 occasions for eight wins and $74,000 in prize money.
All told, the couple’s day consisted of five winners.
Nitrogen Outlaw, chasing his first win since November at Angle Park, led all the way in the Swallow Drive Meats Mixed Stake (400m) when defeating Aston Secret by 5½ lengths in a best of day 22.79 seconds.
