Mortlake trainer Peter Franklin brought over last start Geelong maiden winner Red Coal Carpet – and a story to go with her – when at Mount Gambier for last week’s Tara Raceway time-graded meeting.

Red Coal Carpet, a daughter of Dyna Villa and Slingshot Jayla, is owned in Victoria by Ryan Vanderwert whose association with Franklin goes back to the 1970s.

“Actually, I first ran into Ryan at the 1977 Victorian Waterloo Cup, a 92-dog stake conducted at Geelong. As it turned out, the event was won by Romp (Blue Pharaoh x Forest Daisy), who was part-owned by Robert Halliday,” Franklin said.

“After that, we would occasionally run into each other at greyhound meetings. Then, more recently, I received a phone call out of the blue from Ryan to see if I would be interested in training his greyhound Red Coal Carpet.

“She’d had two starts but the suggestion had been that she may return a better dog after a season. But six months later she still hadn’t come in season and was basically living the life of a pet. Ryan reckoned she was better than that and deserved another chance.

“I told him my kennels were full although one spot was currently being taken up by a GAP dog. ‘I’ll take the GAP dog if you take Red Coal Carpet’, was his desperate reply. So that’s how I came to end up with Red Coal Carpet.”

Franklin also related the origin of the dog’s racing name.

“Apparently it came from a line of the 1969 song Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones. This was a song that covered, among other things, war, murder and fear, and included in its lyrics the line burns like a red coal carpet.”

Red Coal Carpet was certainly running hot last week at Tara Raceway. Away well from box one in the Todd’s Photographics 1-4W Stake (400 m), she led all the way when defeating Cadillac Beast by eight lengths in 23.39 seconds.

Meanwhile, Swirling Miss, the first of Sisco Sizzle’s third litter to race, scored a comfortable seven length all the way win over Cawbourne Kiki in the Gordon Refrigeration Maiden Stake (305 m).

By Zambora Brockie, and one of a litter of eight, she was bred by the Lindsay Brookes-managed Many Winners Syndicate and is trained at Koroit by Brookes.

“We’d given her a couple of trials at Tara Raceway and reckoned that she had gone well enough to warrant bringing her back for a race,” he said.

Several days earlier at the Christmas meeting, Swirling Miss’s half-brother Hello Keen brought up his 20th win when defeating Nitrogen Outlaw by a nose in 23.18 seconds in the Winning Post Supplies Mixed Stake (400 m).

By Fernando Bale, Hello Keen is raced and trained by fellow syndicate members Bev Keane and her brother-in-law Peter Keane.