Thursday, July 12, 2018
Allendale East greyhound trainer Connie Miller will be on the cups trail again when Chilly Kiss and Kolora Posie line up in heats of the time-honoured Anniversary Cup at Tara Raceway on Sunday afternoon.
Miller won the 1986 Anniversary Cup with Kenzel Lad who had been successful in the inaugural cup the previous year when being trained by the Lane family. It would be another 30 years before a greyhound won successive cups – this time Peter Franklin’s Mojito Mayhem, the first in 2015.
And then in 1987 the Miller-trained Durafi won the Anniversary Cup, after having won the Mount Gambier Cup earlier in the year – that feat also achieved by Mojito Mayhem in 2016.
Chilly Kiss was a well-beaten second behind Bomber Creek in last Sunday’s Rock’s Retreat Open Stake (512 metres) at Tara Raceway but so consistent has her form been this year that she now leads in the Greyhound of the Year award with 38 points (5 wins, 7 seconds, 4 thirds), one clear of Oh No Beta.
Also chasing his third cup is Glenroy trainer Richard Clayfield whose Solitary Lad looks well placed in box one in Sunday’s first heat – the son of Lonesome Cry x Up And Away successful at last year’s corresponding meeting in the John Reid Memorial Maiden.
Clayfield has won Anniversary Cups at both local tracks, Seldom Sure successful in 1994 and Glenville Maggie at the Lake Terrace East venue in 2011.
Apsley trainer Tom Cryer has Cryer’s Plugger and Cryer’s Bob engaged and looking for another success after Cryer’s Tiger’s win in 2010 while Nicole Stanley of Portland, following her win last year with Fiorelli Rose, will be hoping for a forward showing from Ben Nevis, a 30.01 seconds winner last week, and Bereluke who returns from a Produce Stake campaign at Gawler.
Likely to stake a strong claim in this year’s event is Bomber Creek, who braved the elements at last Sunday’s meeting to score a dominant win in a rough-house five-dog affair which saw Solitary Lad come off second-best.
Recently purchased by the Kings Choice Syndicate and trained at Mortlake by Peter Crawley, Bomber Creek’s re-match with Solitary Lad on Sunday should be one of the highlights of the day.
This year will mark the 34th running of the Anniversary Cup after the opening meeting had been conducted at Glenburnie on Saturday, July 21, 1979 by the South Eastern Greyhound Racing Club which had been formed some seven years earlier at a public meeting in the Mount Gambier City Hall on September 14, 1972.
The first Anniversary Cup run at Lake Terrace East was in 1997 when the Col Sims trained Becker McLaren won in 30.28 seconds, a race record that stood until 2011 when Glenville Maggie clocked 30.18 seconds.
Complementing the Anniversary Cup is the John Reid Memorial Maiden (512 m), first run in 2005 when won by the Robert Halliday trained Itza Bee who still holds the race record at 30.22 seconds.
Two five-dog heats will kick off Sunday’s meeting with unraced litter sisters Azumi Spirit and Dusty Pearl perhaps holding the key to the series.
By Dyna Tron out of Azumi Touch, who has produced 10 winners at Tara Raceway this year, the sisters are trained at the Worrolong kennels of Steve and Lee Bartholomew.