Tuesday, May 15, 2018
For Spring Ripper and Kolora Posie, impressive winners of the Trackside Meats Feature (512 metres) heats for grade five greyhounds, it was a case of both breaking a long run of outs at Tara Raceway last Sunday afternoon.
Even though Spring Ripper, a son of Spring Gun and Chilly Babe, hadn’t won since the end of September at The Meadows, the brindle dog looked well placed from box one and wasn’t missed by punters when jumping at $2.50.
And he always looked to have Cryer’s Jed’s measure as he chased that greyhound down the back before railing through approaching Captain’s Corner and powering away in the home straight for an emphatic 6½ length win over Goldie’s Run and the early leader in a best of day 30.03 seconds.
Owned at Wagga by Matt Morris, Spring Ripper is trained at Portland by Brian Weis, the connections having combined earlier this year to win the Group Listed Mount Gambier Cup with Xtreme Caution.
Weis has now won five races with Spring Ripper, with his 512 metre maiden win actually coming close to 12 months ago when he defeated Kolora Posie by a length at Tara Raceway in 30.31 seconds.
By Bekim Bale out of Swift Blaze, Kolora Posie, who last won in October, was formerly raced by her Mortlake breeder Terry Payne who recently signed her over to Connie Miller of the Bourne Kennels at Allendale East.
Having her fourth run back after a lengthy break necessitated through seasonal issues and a kennel mishap, Kolora Posie led all the way from box three to defeat the Weis-trained Big Rough by 5¼ lengths in a personal best time of 30.05 seconds.
The win continued Miller’s good run this year, Chilly Kiss, a litter sister to Spring Ripper, having won four races including The Tankman 600 at the cup carnival.
The unraced Swift Blaze has proven to be a handy producer for Payne, with Kolora Posie’s litter brother Barry Bomber having won 13 races and more than $41,000 in prizemoney, his past three wins being at The Meadows over 600 metres.
And an earlier mating with Bekim Bale produced the grand campaigner Old Jock who won the 2016 Mount Gambier Greyhound of the Year award.
Also through to Sunday’s final, which should be an interesting race, are Turbo Road, Blazin’ Vicky and Big Lebowski.