Christian Roberts was successful with Lubbock Lad in April’s Fast Forward and his father Mark with Hatchet Harry in Sepember. Now, Mark’s wife Catherine, the third member of the Terang-based training team, looks to hold a strong hand in Thursday’s Fast Forward.
She has Concrete Comedy through to the final after his all the way win last Thursday over 400 metres in 23.28 seconds – the second-fastest of the five heats.
By Aston Dee Bee out of Trianna, the black dog will go into the $1345 final looking to maintain his unbeaten record at Tara Raceway after having won his only four starts at the track.
The Fast Forward concept is worked as per the normal time-based format whereby greyhounds are graded on a worst to best basis in the heats. However, the final field is determined by times alone with no relevance necessarily given to the greyhound’s finishing position.
So, as far as the final is concerned, no greyhounds from the first heat – won by Okay Flash in 23.69 seconds – have made it through to the final.
Fast Forward heat time honours of 23.09 seconds went the way of Paw Some Sloane, trained at Moorak by Jason Newman who will be chasing his third Fast Forward win over 400 metres.
The daughter of Bernardo and Dusseldorp overcame a slow start to quickly put herself in the race before taking up the running off the back.
And on the line the blue fawn bitch had 3¼ lengths to spare over Marcus Moloney – also into the final for Portland trainer Robert Halliday. Actually, it’s turning out to be a busy week for the pair.
Paw Some Sloane backed up again at yesterday’s meeting where she finished fourth behind El Banjo in the Williams Crane Hire Juvenile Stake (512 m). And later, Marcus Moloney defeated Time After Time by a half-length in 23.25 seconds in the Carlin & Gazzard MG Stake (400 m).
The Fast Forward 1-4 wins (400 m) monthly concept was introduced at Tara Raceway in March when won by the David Peckham trained Recapture Time in 23.31 seconds.
In the following months the series has been won by Lubbock Lad (Christian Roberts, 22.99), Aston Knox (Paul Cusack, 23.29), Johnny Deeds (Dean Fennell , 23.64), Wind Burn Flash (Jason Newman, 23.07), Hatchet Harry (Mark Roberts, 23.38) and Super Cobra (Jason Newman, 23.44).