Saturday, August 1, 2020
Jim Collins’s casual perusal of the Tara Raceway noticeboard a couple of years back has ultimately led to the Mount Gambier-based grader driver again becoming involved in greyhound racing after a break of close to 40 years.
“I’d been going to the Sunday afternoon meetings at Tara Raceway on a regular basis for quite a while and it was purely by chance that I happened to see a for sale advertisement for a litter of pups on the noticeboard,” he said.
And there were plenty to pick from, the Jamie Quinlivian bred December 2017 litter by Hostile out of Sweet Savage comprising eight dogs and five bitches.
Hostile, a son of Collision and Restless Style, raced on only 36 occasions for 13 wins and 13 minor placings, accumulating $125,000 in stakemoney before injury ended his racing career.
Sweet Savage (Cape Hawke x Rustic Reeta) won five races over 400 metres at Gawler, including a quick 22.56 seconds win. She’s also from a 100% winning litter that includes Bear’s Gold, Signal Peak, Jacqui Blax and Bessie Belle.
“Jamie was offering a combo deal of a dog and bitch for $2000 and that’s the way I went,” said Collins, first involved in the sport in the mid-1970s through a greyhound called Marungi Flight (Tivoli Chief x Marungi Girl) when based at Chiltern in Victoria.
“Also on the noticeboard was an advertisement for the rearing of pups, posted by Nicole Stanley of Portland. They’ve been there ever since, Nicole’s training partner Nifty Lenehan doing a great job with the pair that now race as Hostile Savage and Hostile Raven.”
Hostile Savage, a 34 kilograms black dog, kicked off his racing career at Tara Raceway late last year when running second to High Fly Dorothy. Since then he was won two races at Warrnambool and two at The Meadows.
Collins enjoyed city success for the first time when Hostile Savage led all the way for a comfortable five lengths 600 metres win at The Meadows on July 15. He then overcame an early check to score impressively over 525 metres at the same track last Wednesday.
Hostile Raven, a 30 kilograms bitch, won a 410 metres maiden at Horsham in June, connections believing she still has plenty of improvement in her.
And on the Monday of last week, litter brother Mr Mufasa, trained at Harkness by Dan Webber, brought up his ninth win when successful at Ballarat.
Collins said negotiations regarding Hostile Savage’s possible temporary transfer to SA in order that he could contest the forthcoming Bourne Kennels Mount Gambier Cup were currently taking place.
“It would be lovely to see him back here at Tara Raceway on a Sunday afternoon running in the cup,” he said. “I have to say, I’ve really missed getting out here for the Sunday meetings. Hopefully it won’t be too long before they return.”