A big day for the Koroit-based Peter Keane and Lindsay “Blue” Brookes at Thursday’s Tara Raceway time-graded meeting resulted in the Many Winners Syndicate’s Sisco Sizzle taking her tally this year to 17 wins and an outright lead on the local dams’ list.
Keane and Brookes, together with Bev Keane, Gary Thomson and Graham Dix, make up the syndicate which purchased Sisco Sizzle for $4500 at the 2016 Bendigo Ready2Race Sale.
A daughter of Barcia Bale and Sisco Power, she went on to race on 20 occasions for four wins at Warrnambool, as well as running five minor placings.
At the same Ready2Race Sale were Walter and Leanne Love, at the time living in Warrnambool. They were also looking for a greyhound to race and ended up topping the sale with a $31,000 bid for a black son of Bit Chili and Classy Bling.
Later to race as Lucky Love, after 81 starts on Victorian tracks which resulted in 14 wins and 19 minor placings, he fell about $1000 short of returning his purchase price.
Fast forward to last Thursday and three of Sisco Sizzle’s litter by Fernando Bale were engaged in the Exchange Printers 5+ Wins Stake (400 metres) – Twinkle Love (Brookes) and Our Ando and Nanda Sizzle (Keane).
It was back in the early 2000s when Brookes took out a trainer’s licence, primarily to allow him to handle greyhounds at the Warrnambool track on race nights in his role as president of the club.
In fact, it wasn’t until April this year that he trained his first winner at Warrnambool. That was with the Many Winners’ Miss Leonie, a daughter of Thirty Talks out of Sisco Sizzle’s second litter.
Keane, on the other hand, trained his first winner in 1982. He also enjoyed plenty of success in the mid-1980s with Miami Mike, a son of Tempix and Kori Spot which was bred in Mount Gambier by Eric Lewis.
Incidentally, the Eric Lewis Memorial (600 m) will be run in conjunction with the Exchange Printers Anniversary Cup (512 m) and the John Reid Memorial Maiden (512 m) at Sunday week’s Tara Raceway meeting.
And a treble at Warrnambool at the end of 1989 with Star Profile, Linda Michelle and Sydney Kate clinched that year’s trainers’ premiership for Keane.
As it turned out, Walter and Leanne Love, these days based at Terang, also purchased one of Sisco Sizzle’s pups from her Fernando Bale litter.
Later to race as Twinkle Love and win six races for the Loves and Lara trainer Michael Gibbons, the pint-sized brindle bitch in June found herself back where it all began – with Brookes at Koroit.
Despite a handy third placing behind Rocketline the previous week, Twinkle Love jumped at $26 last Thursday. And after finding the front down the back she was never going to be beaten.
On the line she had 2½ lengths to spare over Our Ando with Nanda Sizzle giving the litter the trifecta after finishing a further three lengths back in 23.08 seconds.
Miss Leonie, who gained a start as a reserve in the following race, the Progreyhoundtips.com 1-4 Wins Stake (512 m), gave Brookes his first-ever double. Leading all the way, she defeated Premier Slice by a length in 30.01 seconds.
Then it was Keane’s turn. Attitude, another of the Thirty Talks litter, led all the way in the Metal Worx 1-4 Wins Stake (512 m) when scoring in 30.03 seconds. This brought up his third successive win in the space of a week.
However, the brindle dog had to pull out all stops after Compton Brett made up plenty of ground in the run home to go down by only a neck.