David Lewis
WHAT is it about the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club’s Thursday afternoon meetings at Tara Raceway?
Known as time-graded meetings, the weekly fixtures are in essence for the greyhounds who are still attempting to make their way in the highly competitive world of greyhound racing.
These are also the race meetings – rarely short of nominations – that pay half the prize money to that of the Sunday afternoon Category 2 variety.
But sometimes it seems it is not always about the money.
Just ask Dale Bunn who hails from over Kyneton way and was racing on Thursday for the first time in Mount Gambier.
Making the trip over with Bunn was Bendigo’s Ron Rogers.
The pair had certainly put in the hard yards by the time Scarsdale Tiger lined up in box four in the 305-metre Todd’s Photographics Maiden Stake.
“We’d been keen to race our dogs behind the finish-on lure but wanted to give them a trial on the track prior to racing,” Bunn said.
“So we made two 10-hour round trips over to give them a look here.”
“When we came back for the second trial you could really notice the difference in the dogs,” Rogers said.
“They knew where they were and really wanted to get after the finish-on lure.”
By Fernando Bale out of the unraced Unique Josaphine, Scarsdale Tiger is raced by the Martin Kristan-managed Novice Syndicate.
Last week’s race was his first since last November and also his first for Bunn.
Lining up on the back of two unplaced runs at Ballarat and Warrnambool, the brindle dog never looked like being beaten when leading all the way for a 7¾ length win over Star Reign in 17.75 seconds.
Bunn has been involved with greyhounds for 50 years and his patience with “problem dogs” once again came to the fore after Scarsdale Tiger’s emphatic win.
“No, it’s not always about the money,” he said.
“Sometimes it’s about deriving satisfaction from the win and that’s how it was today with this dog.
“He certainly had a few issues and it did take a while to get him going but today’s win certainly made it all worthwhile.”
Meanwhile, in the following race, the Gambier Vets Maiden Stake (305m), Bunn had first start litter brothers Calzaghe and Ramelius engaged.
By city-winning stayer Taken King out of Winlock Rapido, the pair finished second and third behind another first starter in Ever Hoping who won by 2¼ lengths in 17.82 seconds.
Later in the day it was the Rogers’ owned and trained Northern Regie, after being on the pace throughout, who ran third behind the Richard Clayfield trained Katoni in the Hyland Fox 1-4 Wins Stake (400m).
Having his first start for Rogers, Northern Regie is by Hooksy out of Cinnamon Rose who actually won three races in succession at Tara Raceway back in March 2018 when trained by Clayfield of Glenroy.
The Progreyhoundtips.com Fast Forward (400m) final was won in emphatic style by Honey Rocks who defeated Captain Red Tin by 4½ lengths in a smart 22.90 seconds.
Raced by Adelaide owner Ron Murch and trained at Compton by Tracie Price, the daughter of Fernando Bale and Rhonda Rocks earlier this year won the $10,000 Summer Classic (512m) at Tara Raceway.
