The Newman McDonnell Memorial, along with the Mount Gambier Cup and the Anniversary Cup, is one of the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club’s longest-running feature events.
This year will mark the 39th running of the time-honoured event. Heats will be conducted over 512 metres for grade five greyhounds on Sunday, November 3 with the final a week later.
Newman McDonnell was at the public meeting held on September 14, 1972 in the Mount Gambier City Hall where he was elected onto the inaugural committee of the South East Greyhound Racing Club.
Almost seven years later he was president of the club when greyhound racing commenced in the south east at the Glenburnie race track.
And long before that, in 1964, he had owned Tara Princess, the inaugural winner of the Sandown Laurels. Glenburnie carried the Tara Raceway name as does the current venue on Lake Terrace East.
The first McDonnell Memorial was run in November 1986 when won by Kenzel Lad. Subsequent memorials to be conducted at the original track were won by Bozie Flyer, Irkanda Leo, Invercoe Riot, National Ribbon, Foxtrot Oscar, Bush Pepper, Larradinya, Wild Welcome, Colin Ian and Ashanti Gem.
Camo’s Lucky, trained at Penshurst by John Cameron, won the first memorial conducted at a TAB meeting in 2012. And David Peckham’s Bourne Again is still the only greyhound to have consecutive memorials – in 2013 and 2014.
Winners since then have been Boris Bekim (Brian Fish), Glenville Jester (Richard Clayfield), Lektra Stomp (Brian Lenehan), Banjo Lass (Tracie Price), Spring Value (Kevin Mugavin), Midnight Daisy (David Peckham), Crush Your Enemy (Tim Richards), Classic Moment (Kevin Mugavin) and Malevolent Girl (Laughlin McLean).
Meanwhile, Compton Rocky, a son of My Redeemer and Galactic Mojo, staked his claim for a shot at this year’s McDonnell Memorial with an outstanding win in last Sunday’s Trackside Pet Meats Pick 6 Stake, a grade six race run over 512 metres.
Taking the lead down the back, the white and black dog powered away to a 9½ length win in a personal best time of 30.07 seconds when bringing up his third win from nine starts.
On track was the holidaying Newton family from Rockhampton in Queensland. And trainer Tracie Price was only too happy to offer mum Ashleigh and sons Conner and Hudson the opportunity of catching up with the appropriately-named Compton Rocky after the win.
A nice piece of PR on the part of Price who will now be back at Gawler this Sunday night with Croatian Comet who has qualified for the Group 3 Gawler Cup final (531 m).