Saturday, July 20, 2019
Glencoe trainer Dean Fennell would have been more than happy with the efforts of General Max and Beat Max Bazza when the 18-month-old litter brothers filled the first two placings in the Laser Electrical Maiden Stake (400 m) at Tara Raceway last Thursday.
Having their first race starts, it was General Max who quickly found the front from box four and then proceeded to put a fair gap on his opposition when winning by 10 lengths in a more than handy maiden time of 23.43 seconds.
However, Beat Max Bazza should be improved by the outing, finding trouble early and looking green when using plenty of the track.
By former SA champion Worm Burner, a winner of 48 races and $380,000 in stakemoney, the pair is out of Miss Hodge, who raced on only three occasions but is a member of the handy Cape Hawke x Jamaican Ruby litter.
Owned by the trainer’s son Hayden and his partner Ebony Janz, the January 2018 whelpings were purchased at four months of age from Ecklin South breeder Beryl Fulton and reared by Dean Fennell who said it had been Worm Burner that had been the selling point.
“Hayden and his mates had previously enjoyed some success at Tara Raceway with a few performed dogs but when the Miss Hodge litter came up for sale with an asking price of $2500 each he queried whether I could handle a couple of Worm Burner pups.
“They developed into really nice dogs and later we were heartened by a promising breaking-in report from Peter Byrne at Koroit.
“And after some handy gallops at Tara Raceway trial sessions we went into last Thursday’s race as confident as you can be with greyhounds having their first start in a race.”
Worm Burner, a son of Oaks Road and Little Looper, now has approximately 50 litters on the ground – Miss Breakout further boosting his stocks when winning the Champion Puppy Classic (515 m) at Angle Park last Thursday night.