By David Lewis
The running of another Tara Tipsters Cup, this time once again recognising the Visually Impaired Club of Mount Gambier, kicks off a busy December at the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club’s Tara Raceway on Lake Terrace East.
The cup, an eight-dog race over 512 metres, is framed at the grader’s discretion and run on Sunday, December 3 prior to a presentation to representatives of the local charity.
Then, at the time-graded meeting on Thursday, December 7, heats of the final Fast Forward series for the year will be run over 400 metres for 1-4 wins greyhounds.
Selected from “Worst to Best” category, the Fast Forward final – to be run for Category 2 prize money a week later – comprises the eight greyhounds running the fastest times in the heats, regardless of their finishing positions.
Heats of the Williams Crane Hire Christmas Cup/Border Challenge (Open, 512m) will be decided on Sunday, December 10.
They will be complemented by heats of the Peter Whitehead Memorial (Maiden, 400m), and the Santa Sprint (Open, 400m).
Highlighting the Sunday, December 17 meeting is the Williams Crane Hire Christmas Cup final.
Other supporting events on the day are the Christmas Challenge (Grades 5/6, 600m), the Merry Masters (305m) and the Dasher Distance (732m).
Subject to meeting the Border Challenge criteria, the first four over the line in the Christmas Cup final will also be Mount Gambier’s first choices to represent the club in the Warrnambool v Mount Gambier Border Challenge (450m) in Warrnambool on Thursday, December 21.
As far as Mount Gambier conditions are concerned for the Border Challenge, trainers must have had starters at 15 Mount Gambier meetings in the past 12 months.
They must have trained the greyhound nominated for the previous three months.
Also, the greyhound must have started at least four times in the past 12 months at Tara Raceway.
The Christmas Cup goes back to 2011 when it was won by the David Peckham trained Napoleon Wiz. Winners since have been 2012 Lika Gem (Allen Williams), 2013 Bourne Again (David Peckham), 2014 Who’s Doing What (Tracie Price) and 2015 Fear The Rascal (Tracie Price).
In 2016 the Christmas Cup was won by Glenville Jester (Richard Clayfield), 2017 Hit The Runway (Nicole Stanley), 2018 Hutch (Robert Halliday), 2019 Squishy Pea (David Peckham), 2020 Golly Gumdrops (Tracie Price), 2021 Bungaloo Anne (John Little) and 2022 Aston Ziebell (David Peckham).
The Border Challenge was first run over 450 metres at Warrnambool on December 5, 2019 when won by the home track representative Lektra Fireball, trained by Phil Lenehan.
Representing Mount Gambier on the night were Wanchai Express (Nicole Stanley), Galactic Mojo (Steve Bartholomew) and Flash Jackie (David Peckham).
But with Covid and the border closures that followed, it was not until last year that the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club finally staged its first home track Border Challenge.
Once again, though, it was Warrnambool that came out on top after Max Power, trained at Dennington by Dustin Drew, defeated the Jason Newman trained local hope Wind Burn Flash by 1½ lengths in 29.88 seconds.
Other local representatives were Aston Ziebell (David Peckham), Banjo Bert (Tracie Price), Aston Marlon (David Peckham) and Departure Gate (Jason Newman).
