Thursday, February 7, 2019
Pinnaroo trainer Nathan Wilson and his father Bill snuck unobtrusively into Mount Gambier on Wednesday for Tara Raceway’s fortnightly time-graded meeting, bringing with them only one greyhound – the beautifully bred Lose Your Blues.
According to Wilson, the daughter of High Earner and his former top race bitch and now proven producer Oakvale Destiny (stake earnings of $279,000) was down to try and derive some confidence from a 600 metre time-graded event.
“She had won two races at Angle Park over 515 metres but her last win had been back in July last year and it seemed as though she was lacking confidence,” he said.
“I’ve always thought that she had a bit of ability so I was hoping that she might benefit from being able to get into a time-graded middle-distance race behind the finish-on-lure and, hopefully, in a small field.”
Well, it couldn’t have worked out better for Wilson and Lose Your Blues, the Metal Worx Stake (600 m) being reduced to four runners after scratchings – and box one thrown in for good measure.
Having her first look at Tara Raceway, Lose Your Blues, who jumped at $1.28, settled in second spot behind It’s Magic, taking over the front running in the back straight, eventually winning by five lengths over the early leader in 35.68 seconds.
Now it’s fair to say that Wednesday’s race meeting was a far cry from the bright lights of a few nights’ earlier at NSW’s premier track Wentworth Park where the National Derby (520 m) and National Futurity (520 m) were decided.
Wilson was at the track on the Saturday night specifically for the Group 1 Futurity final which included Lose Your Blues’ litter sister Oakvale Magic who he races in partnership with his wife Kerri.
Trained by Jeff Britton at Anakie, Oakvale Magic ultimately ran third in the final, taking the 24 kilogram bitch’s record to nine wins, two seconds and seven thirds from 29 starts for $41,000 in stakemoney.
Another littermate is Oakvale Warrior, a winner of 10 races from 24 starts and $26,000 in stakemoney.
Wilson is also currently pre-training four unnamed youngsters by Kinloch Brae out of Oakvale Destiny’s second litter. A third, by boom sire Fernando Bale, was whelped in September 2018.
Later on Saturday night, the Group 1 Derby turned out to be a triumph for Wilson’s sister Melissa and her husband Ken Trowbridge when the Jeff Britton trained Axel Footluce gave the Park Holme pair their biggest success in greyhound racing.
The significance of the Derby win, from a breeding point of view, wouldn’t have been lost on Wilson, Axel Footluce, now a winner of $113,000 in stakemoney, being by Kinloch Brae out of Footluce Diva, herself a winner of 17 races and $61,000 and a litter sister to Oakvale Destiny.
And while there were no bright lights shining at Tara Raceway on Wednesday it’s a fair bet that Nathan Wilson, as he made the 320 kilometre trip back to Pinnaroo, would have been well satisfied with Lose Your Blues’ confidence-boosting effort.