It was an outstanding afternoon of greyhound racing at the Manukau Stadium on Sunday with some outstanding support races on the undercard to the $100,000 Duke Of Edinburgh Silver Collar witnessed. Included was the seventh running of the $6,000 Peter Earley Classic.

Jared Udy and Denise Cottam are enjoying a fair amount of current success being firmly on target to bring up their first ever century of training wins (95 to date) for a season. They mentored four winners on Sunday with Kiwi Gal stylishly prevailing in the Peter Earley Classic who later on called his 47th Duke Of Edinburgh Silver Collar final.

 

Kiwi Gal arrived into this 527m feature event on the back of two tidy Manukau 527m victories. It was no surprise that she jumped away from the six trap as the $3.40 favourite and in doing so she seized the early race lead. It was lead she was never going to hand up as she freewheeled her way to her 30.54s feature race win by a 4.5 length margin. It was her 19th win from her 68 race day outings and her career earnings now sit at $47,729 for her owing Dinny syndicate.

 

Tianyu, who was the previous weeks Auckland Derby winner, pushed on stoutly during the run home for his second placing after the Glennis Farrell prepared greyhound had chased after the pacemaker for virtually the entire trip. Egomaniacal had travelled north from the San Roberts Canterbury based kennels and he was bold when finishing third the same margin adrift.     

 

Hifi Allegro Series Final

 

Too The Nail was easily the quickest of the two 318m sprint heat winners from the previous Sunday for the Hifi Allegro Series final. His trainer Emma Potts slotted him away into the five trap from where he made a great beginning from. He vied for the early race lead with the fast starting Kapai Lana from the Ross and Lyn Udy kennels.

 

Too The Nail proved too strong when he cleared out for his strong 18.36s 318m win, when tasting his 19th win. In doing so he took his stake earning out to over $50,000. Kapai Lana really relished hopping away from trap eight and she kicked on bravely to hold on for her deserved second placing. The Ben Craik prepared Your Valentine finished solidly for his third placing a further three quarters of a length behind.

 

Sunline Trophy Stakes

 

The Sunline Trophy Stakes is a quarterly 527m feature race for the lower graded chasers (C0, C1 & C2) held by the Auckland GRC. It is sponsored by Thayne and Dorothy Green of Sunline fame. It is a points based series, therefore a number of the leading points getters can advance further up the grades.     

 

That’s exactly what the Jared Udy and Denise Cottam trained It’s A Stroll had achieved, starting this race as C4 graded chaser hence his $3 win favoritism. He strode clear when leaving from trap three and he controlled the pace all the way from there, clocking 30.92s for his assignment which he landed by 1.25 lengths. As mentioned the partners kennels is currently firing on all cylinders as seen by them training the race trifecta. It was Cracking Gal who finished second, while another 3.75 lengths behind was kennelmate Monsoon Malabar.

 

      

 

The Peter Earley Classic winner Kiwi Gal; Auckland Board member Dave Bryn presented the trainer of Too The Nail Emma Potts with the winning Hifi Allegro Series trophy, while Thayne Green did likewise to Meagan, who handled the Sunline Trophy Stakes winner It’s A Stroll

 

      

 

As mentioned there was quality greyhound racing throughout the Silver Collar meeting. Melbourne greyhound commentator James Van de Maat made the trip across the Tasman and he called two races, which included the Sunline Trophy Stakes – James is pictured here calling the exciting young sprinter Buddy Boom home for Jared Udy and Denise Cottam when he claimed his 11th career win (from 12 races) in the meet best 318m 18.26s time and here’s Buddy Boom postrace with co-trainer Jared Udy and race sponsor Carol Dellimore (right) and her daughter Joanne, while the other Udy & Cottam winner during the meeting was Miss Claude who won her C4 318m dash in 18.62s.

  

       

 

New northern trainer Sean O’Neil is making it a habit of training winners on Group 1 Manukau race days – he prepared two winners on Sunday. Dig Dig Dig who is sighted here after he won the C2 527m event in 30.73s & he also produced his sprinter Zugzwang to take out the last race C3 318m dash in 18.75s, who is pictured with his mother (left), grandmother (right) and leading northern jockey Sam Spratt; the C3 527m race saw the Ben Craik trained Clap Back leading all the way in 30.90s     

 

By Peter Fenemor.