Back in 2012 when the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club was granted TAB status and three race meetings a fortnight was when Apsley couple Tom and Margaret Cryer decided it was time to dust off the whelping box.
“We hadn’t bred a litter for quite some time,” Tom Cryer had said following the Greyhound Racing SA announcement. “But with regular racing in a daytime slot we decided to make Tara Raceway our home track.”
Besides, they already had a brood bitch – the appropriately named 23 kilogram Cryer’s Midget, a winner of 11 of races at Tara Raceway and the 2011 Mount Gambier Greyhound of the Year.
In 2013 they mated the daughter of Texas Gold and Shady Grove Fox with up and coming sire Spring Gun. Heady times were to follow with the litter, highlighted by Cryer’s Fred, Cryer’s Jack and Cryer’s Ricky, subsequently winning 83 races.
Later, Cryer’s Midget was again mated with Spring Gun, the second litter including Cryer’s Plugger and Cryer’s Bob and winning a further 71 races.
A final litter, by Spud Regis – the service won by Cryer’s Ricky after he had been successful in the 2015 Summer Classic – included Cryer’s Harper, a winner of 22 races.
Later, the Cryers, when looking for another pup, settled on a brindle dog that was later named Cryer’s Spring. By Spring Gun, he’s out of Grimsby Girl, a finalist for Tracie Price in the 2016 Mount Gambier Cup won by Mojito Mayhem.
By the end of March 2020 Cryer’s Spring had won seven races at Tara Raceway. But with border restrictions in place due to Covid the Cryers were now virtually locked in to racing at Horsham.
And with Tom Cryer by then well into his eighties, and in failing health, it wasn’t all that long before he was required to be placed in care. His wife later relocated to the Adelaide suburb of Glandore.
Taking over the training of Cryer’s Spring for Margaret Cryer was Portland-based Nicole Stanley who prior to last Sunday’s meeting had won six races with the February 2018 whelping at Mount Gambier, Horsham and Warrnambool.
Lining up from box five in last Sunday’s Hyland Fox Stake (400 metres), Cryer’s Spring went straight to the front and celebrated his 100th start with a win over False Alarm by 1¾ lengths in a personal best time of 22.97 seconds.
“What a great way to celebrate 100 starts,” a delighted Stanley said. “To be honest, I’d seriously been considering retiring him. I might have to rethink that now after a sub-23 second win.”
The only thing missing from last Sunday’s win was, of course, Tom and Margaret Cryer.
Somehow, Sunday afternoons at Tara Raceway these days don’t seem quite the same without the feisty trainer, his wife dutifully tagging along behind and their table of supporters always on hand to support the Cryer dogs.