A quick win over 388 metres at Angle Park last night by Aston Hayato has Allendale East trainer David Peckham now setting his sights on regaining the 400 metres track record at Tara Raceway.
For most of this year the record had been held by the Peckham-trained Dyna Carnie at 22.74 seconds. However, this was broken at last Thursday’s meeting by Almighty Stripe who ran 22.68 seconds for Meningie trainer Tim Richards.
Raced by high-profile SA owner Ray Borda, Aston Hayato clocked 21.99 seconds last night when winning a grade five stake. This was two lengths outside of Victa Louise’s long-standing record of 21.85 seconds.
The win by the son of Fernando Bale x Aston Shiraz was also the first leg of a running double for Peckham, Angelo’s Entity winning a grade six stake in 22.21 seconds.
Aston Hayato is the dog that found his way over to Mount Gambier from Victoria back in July after he displayed little interest in being a racing greyhound. Tara Raceway’s finish-on-lure, it seems, has turned around his fortunes to the tune of seven wins from 14 starts.
Speaking this morning in muffled tones after having a tooth extracted, Peckham said he was also keen to get back over the border where there were more options for Aston Hayato when it came to suitable distances.
“Also, I’d like to give him another crack over 512 metres,” he said. “He’s only raced once here over 512 metres and he got a bit tired. But that was a fair while ago and with the Newman McDonnell Memorial coming up next month I wouldn’t mind running him in that.”
The leading local trainer won the long-running memorial in 2013 and again the following year with Bourne Again.
Meanwhile, Bourne Burner, a son of Worm Burner and another of Peckham’s former Tara Raceway record holders in Thanks Tubby, will be the first of the March 2019 litter to race when he lines up from box one in Thursday’s Produce Store Maiden (512 m).
Raced by Peckham in partnership with local sporting identity Kevin “KD” Douglas, the black youngster’s dam held the 512 metres record at 29.60 seconds from June 2014 until Brazen Bomber lowered it three years later to 29.55 seconds.