This year the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club will celebrate 46 years of greyhound racing in Mount Gambier with the running of the Federal Hotel Anniversary Cup (512 m) at Tara Raceway on Lake Terrace East.

Heats will be run on Sunday, July 13 with a record $10,000 final being run a week later. Supporting the Anniversary Cup will be the John Reid Memorial Maiden (305 m) and the one-off Eric Lewis Memorial (600 m).

And as far as cup winners go quite often there’s a good story to go with the win. Few better, probably, than that of the 2018 Anniversary Cup.

The 2½-year-old Ben Nevis, previously one of the “bad boys” of greyhound racing, had spent something like five months on the sidelines due to indiscretions on the track prior to winning the Anniversary Cup.

He even failed a couple of Greyhound Adoption Program (GAP) assessments. His owners Sue Smith and her daughter, trainer Angela Langton, finally opting for one last roll of the dice – with Portland trainer Nicole Stanley.

But while she had enjoyed some success over a long period of time with greyhounds raced by the pair that had been considered not up to Victorian city standard, Ben Nevis had certainly been something of a challenge.

It had actually taken countless trials before the son of Return The King and Tarks Jewel switched on to the finish-on lure and then returned to racing – not only winning the Anniversary Cup but another six races.

His last win was in May 2019 when he defeated Lektra Brandy who two months later won the 2019 Anniversary Cup for Nifty Lenehan.