Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Surely, Lots Of Yap’s win in 2015 still has to be one of the best stories to come out of the 39 Mount Gambier Cups run so far.
Here we had a scenario whereby rookie trainer Ben Boers, of Portland, was never going to die wondering when he took on Mount Gambier’s biggest race of the year with his giveaway greyhound Lots Of Yap.

Not that there’s too much wrong with her breeding – by Premier Fantasy out of Have A Yap, a winner of 37 races in New Zealand – Lots Of Yap having won four races at Tara Raceway by the time the cup came around at the beginning of March.
However, the Mount Gambier Cup was a whole new ball game, Lots Of Yap, to her credit, running a game 7¼ length second in a heat to Adelaide greyhound Lobo Loco, trained by Robyn Mackellar who ultimately would have to wait another two years before winning the cup with Fabregal.
Boers had probably done as well as could be expected, his 26-month-old black bitch one of the reserves for the following week’s final. No chance of a run, though, because they just don’t scratch out of those sort of races.
Well, sometimes they do. In the week leading up to the final Boers received a phone call from Compton trainer Tracie Price who had the pre-post favourite Who’s Doing What sitting up in box one.
Price gave Boers the heads-up that Who’s Doing What had come in season and would be scratched from the final. Lots Of Yap was in, and with box one to boot.
So, come Sunday, March 8, Boers, wife Lizzie and a car-full of kids arrive at Tara Raceway with Lots Of Yap who is looking to become the first reserve runner to win the Mount Gambier Cup since Ralph Patzel’s Ashanti Gem in 1997.
And later in the day when Lots Of Yap hit the front down the back in the 2015 Classic Bet Mount Gambier Cup final (512 metres) Boers must have dared to dream that just maybe this was going to be his day.
But turning for home she moved out, Bourne Again taking the rails run and the lead for Allendale East trainer David Peckham, still looking to emulate his father Allen who won the 1994 cup with Argyle Sally at Glenburnie.
In the end, though, it was going to be the Boers’ day, unprecedented scenes to follow after Lots Of Yap dug deep in the home straight to eventually win by a head in 30.04 seconds.
Fast forward three years and Boers mates Lots Of Yap, her first litter resulting in two dogs and five bitches to Nitro Burst, fellow Portland greyhound man Andy Graham rearing the litter from three months of age and receiving three bitches in return.
A couple of those May 2018 bitches were at Tara Raceway for the first time last Sunday, Graham saying that Rose Bay had broken-in reasonably well while Bay Me was probably the quickest of the litter.
Having her first start anywhere, Rose Bay gave Lots Of Yap her first winner as a dam when overcoming a slow start from box eight in the O’Brien Electrical Maiden Stake (400 m) before taking the lead off the back and running out a 2½ length winner in 23.43 seconds.

Bay Me, with one luckless start at Warrnambool early this month, looked to face a fair assignment in the Trackside Meats Maiden/One Win Stake (512 m), Nicole Stanley’s Oscar The Scout striving to improve on a run of five consecutive seconds and the Peckham-trained Fabs You Go chasing his third straight win.
It was Bay Me, though, who flew the start from box one, opening up a more than handy break down the back over Oscar The Scout. Surely he wasn’t going to run another second!
But turning for home, Oscar The Scout looked to have the leader covered, the fawn dog duly finishing a length clear of Bay Me in 30.12 seconds – the runner-up certainly brave in defeat when clocking 30.19 seconds.
This year’s Summer Classic (512 m), for dogs and bitches whelped on or after January 1, 2018, looks like being one of the best ever, Bay Me – her dam a classic heat winner in 2015 – another one to be added to the ever-growing list of genuine contenders.