Saturday, June 27, 2020
Former Adelaide-based greyhound Spring Cuervo looks a likely contender for the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club’s forthcoming Anniversary Cup (512 metres) after an impressive win on debut at Tara Raceway last Thursday.
Raced by Nick Papatheodorakis and Ray Prior and now trained at Compton by Tracie Price, Spring Cuervo, after a quick first split of 4.34 seconds, led all the way from box four in the Bourne Kennels Stake (512 m) to defeat West On Tia by three-quarters of a length in a best of day 29.78 seconds.

For the well-bred son of Kinloch Brae and Spring Grace, who has now raced on 54 occasions for 13 wins and $30,000 in stakemoney, the win was his first since February when he was successful over 515 metres at Angle Park in a best of night 29.67 seconds.
The Anniversary Cup, run continuously since 1984 at Glenburnie and later at Lake Terrace East, is one Mount Gambier feature race that has eluded Price whose last finalist was Lyon Rose in the 2016 cup won by Mojito Mayhem.
West On Tia, who raced in WA until transferring to SA 12 months ago, hasn’t won since last September when successful over 600 metres at Angle Park.
In trainer David Peckham’s Allendale East kennels for most of this year, West On Tia, who has returned to the track after a four month break to run three consecutive seconds at Tara Raceway, is another one that looks a likely contender for the Thursday, July 23 cup meeting.
But owners Tim Aloisi and Matt Lehman may well be looking at the Eric Lewis Memorial (732 m) for their daughter of Bekim Bale x Tearsabout Tears who prior to leaving WA had won two 715 metres staying events at Cannington.

Price and Peckham shared the training honours on the day, both landing their fifth treble for the year – Price with Charming Charlie, Tandiki and Spring Cuervo and Peckham with Rooster, Rock It Fernando and Double Vision.
And Jason Newman, of Moorak, who trained his first winner, Like A Slug, on June 4, three weeks later landed his first double with Connie’s Entity and Like A Slug who brought up his third win for the month.
Meanwhile, last Thursday’s meeting concluded the first six months of racing at Tara Raceway with the following first in line for the 2020 Tara Trackstar No. 1 (512 m) which is a forthcoming one-off race for the best performed eight greyhounds at the track between January and June.
Squishy Pea (David Peckham) 44 points; Perseverance (Dean Fennell) 42; Rock It Fernando (David Peckham) 31; Dyna Carnie (David Peckham) 30; Rooster (David Peckham), Vossy (Tracie Price) 29; Tandiki (Tracie Price) 28; Akuma Fireball (Andy Graham), Dyna Alistair (David Peckham), Zipping Capri (Richard Clayfield) 27.
Obviously, for a variety of reasons, not all of these will be nominated for the Trackstar but with something like 340 greyhounds having collected points in the first six months there will be no shortage of numbers.