Group 1 racing means strong support races on the undercard and Friday’s Group 1 $46,000 New Zealand Breeders’ Stakes meeting at the Hatrick Raceway was no different.

There was two open class races which saw Lisa Cole trained greyhounds winning both of them. They were two of the seven winners prepared from the nation’s leading kennels which maintained the Cole momentum in the chase after the national record for the most training successes in a racing season.

 

Pictured: Alamein Stryda after winning his C3 305m dash during the NZ Breeders’ Stakes meeting. He is pictured here with his co-trainer Neville Phillips, who became a member of the NZOM during the recent Queen’s Birthday honours awards for his services to youth (refer to the Advisories section here)

 

The Palmerston North based Cole kennels completed the NZ Breeders’ Stakes meeting with 720m winners for the current season. Their target is 804 winners, which will set new national figures for a racing season after having tied for the record number of winners trained in a single season with John McInerney after preparing 803m winners last season. Incidentally Karen Walsh, who produced Thrilling Talk to finish third in the NZ Breeders’ Stakes final, has built a comfortable lead in the NZ Trainers Strike Rate table as she seeks to retain that title.

 

            

The NZ Breeders’ Stakes meeting commenced with a C1/2 520m event which saw long time trainer Bill Hodgson preparing True Testament for her 30.96s win – she’s pictured here with Bill, along with his son Glenn; for the second consecutive race in Nathen Udy prepared Zara Jinx who delivered a strong finish and in doing so he won the C1 feature 520m final in 30.90s; the first of the Lisa Cole trained seven winners for evening came in the third race where Bigtime Alfie prevailed in his C1/2 520m race, clocking 30.72s.

 

 

      

Bigtime Bruno has a strong group of vocal owners and members of his Buckwild Racing syndicate was on hand to cheer home their charge when he won his C3 520m race in 30.55s for the Cole kennel; the open class sprinters were next up for their C5 305m dash – it resulted in the Cole prepared Bigtime Pete running down his kennelmate Sir Duggie in 17.66s with the pair combining to return a minuscule $1.40 race quinella; maintaining the Cole training momentum in the race 6 C4 520m event was Bigtime Archie who snatched his win by a nose margin – he’s pictured here with handler Ella Cole

 

            

 

The C3 305m sprinters was next up which saw Alamein Stryda getting up late to nail his $17.30 win in 17.91s for his co-trainers Don Kettlewell and Nev Phillips (as seen above); it was back to the Cole kennels in the main C5 520m support race which saw Bigtime Acacia landing her strong finishing 30.34s victory, which turned into the quickest 520m time recorded during the evening; former GRNZ President John McArthur has been enjoying a fair amount of current success with Fifi, whom he bred – she won her C3 dash in 17.73s and is pictured here with John and his wife Robyn;

 

   

There was two C3/4 305m sprints carded to wrap up the evening’s action which firstly saw Bigtime Lucy securing her second C4 win for the week via her 17.86s dash for Cole and she was followed by the Jake and Dayze Bell trained Justa Gift who regained her open class sprinting status when she delivered her 17.68s win – she’s pictured here with Jake Bell and one of her owners Barry Stevens along with Shirley Debarr

 

By Peter Fenemor