Thursday, January 2, 2020
Sweet On Me, unbeaten at her only four Tara Raceway starts, and litter brother Call Me Billy, a first-up winner at Thursday’s time-graded meeting, have been sold in a package deal for an undisclosed sum by Warrnambool owner Noel Mugavin to the Ross Schurgott-managed Nineofus Syndicate.
From the January 2018 litter by Barcia Bale out of Call Me Gee, Sweet On Me won three 512 metre races at Tara Raceway, all in sub-30 seconds, during December.
And Call Me Billy overcame a slow start from box seven in Thursday’s Williams Crane Hire Stake (512 m) before taking the lead down the back and ultimately running away to a 2½ length win over Pa’s Chance in 30.28 seconds.
The sale now means that the pair will remain at Allendale East with Mount Gambier’s 2019 Ian Badger Leading Trainer of the Year, David Peckham, also a member of the Nineofus Syndicate and certainly relieved that the future of the pair has been shored up.
“Sometimes when a greyhound starts to perform well and it attracts some outside interest you’re just not sure where it’s all going to end. But in the case of Sweet On Me and Call Me Billy we’ll now be able to move forward and map out a plan for them,” Peckham said.
“Everything going to plan we’ll look at next month’s Summer Classic (512 m), an event for dogs and bitches whelped on or after January 1, 2018, and then follow up with the Mount Gambier Cup (512 m) in March-April.”