It had been back in the days of Covid that Glencoe trainer Dean Fennell had first become acquainted with Koroit trainer and greyhound educator Peter Byrne.

And with border restrictions in place the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club had been feeling the pinch numbers-wise as far as its weekly race meetings had been concerned.

“But Peter was only too happy to help out. We used to meet at the border and bring a trailer-load back to race at Tara Raceway,” Fennell said.

That association has continued with Fennell enjoying one of his best days at Tara Raceway since December 2022 when he landed a Byrne-bred litter double at last Thursday’s time-graded meeting with Saint Sally and Saint Shell.

In the Commercial Hotel TG1-4W Stake (305 m), Saint Sally virtually led all the way from box six when defeating Can Get Thirsty by 1¾ lengths in 18.08 seconds.

Then, later in the day in the Exchange Printers TG1-4W Stake (512 m), Saint Shell led all the way and held out Bourne Panama for a three-quarter length win in 30.45 seconds.

The litter sisters are by Tommy Shelby out of Mepunga Prue, a Victorian city winner of nine races and $36,000 in prize money. They also trace back to Group 1 winner Mepunga Hayley.

It was back on December 15, 2022 that Fennell landed a treble at a time-graded meeting with Glasgow Lass, Pirate Gold and wrapped it up with an exciting win by Zoe’s Way who defeated Four Longnecks by a neck over 512 metres in 30.01 seconds.