Saturday, August 17, 2019
It’s been a while now since Blazing Moment and Bekim Lucy’s – both members of the Bekim Bale x Lucy’s Moment litter – last raced.
Blazing Moment, trained for much of his career by Tracie Price at Compton, retired early this year after having won 17 races at Angle Park, Mandurah, Cannington, Gawler and Mount Gambier, along with reaching the finals of the 2017 Darwin Cup and the 2018 Mount Gambier Cup.
And Bekim Lucy’s, trained throughout her 67-start career by Price, retired more than 12 months ago after winning 11 races – including wins over 731 metres and 732 metres at Angle Park and Mount Gambier – and in April this year whelped a litter of three dogs and four bitches to Spring Gun.
But litter brother Dimora Bekim, now a rising five-year-old, continues to race well at Tara Raceway for his veteran Charlton trainer Kevin Ashton who took over the ownership and training of the black dog in late November 2017.
Dimora Bekim, at this stage of his racing career now well-suited to the time-graded format, brought up his third 400 metre win from his past five starts at the Mount Gambier track when leading all the way in last Thursday’s Laser Electrical Stake to defeat Nix Jakit by 1¾ lengths in 23.51 seconds.
All told, the November 2014 whelping has won 13 races, Ashton having picked up seven wins, although after a win in February this year Dimora Bekim experienced a five-month losing spell, his wily trainer initially at a loss to pinpoint the problem.
“I’d been over him that many times but I couldn’t find anything wrong with him,” Ashton said. “Eventually, though, I found a deep-seated shoulder problem and after working on that he is now racing more consistently.”
One of the reasons for the introduction of time-graded racing was to enable greyhounds to stay in the system longer and extend their racing careers. Ashton once again took advantage of the format with three other runners last Thursday – Mr Agro, Mr Perfect and Ollie Aztec – all five years or older.
Meanwhile, the durable 4½-year-old Big Rough, at start number 123, won his second time-graded race this year for Mount Gambier part-owner and trainer Noel Perry and his wife Heather.
A son of Lochinvar Marlow and Bogie Dawn, Big Rough was purchased as a pup by the Perrys from Nhill breeder Andrea Gurry. Later, Perry, due to circumstances beyond his control, took over the training of the black dog after he had won 10 races at Tara Raceway.
Despite drawing a handy field in the Winmore Greyhound Kennels Stake (512 m), Big Rough quickly had the race in his keeping after finding the front going out of the first turn, eventually running out a 2½ length winner over Loroupe in 30.31 seconds.
It was also a good week for Mininera owner-trainer Robert Proctor who was successful up the straight at Healesville on the Monday with Master Winslow and three days’ later at Tara Raceway’s time-graded meeting with the same dog.
Bred by Proctor, Master Winslow was heavily backed to win the South Eastern Hotel Stake (400 m) and once finding the rails never really looked in any danger of defeat, on the line having four lengths to spare over Crackerjack Tim in 23.65 seconds.
A son of Vee Man Vane and Proctor Rules, the win was his first at Tara Raceway although he had previously won on six occasions at Healesville, Proctor saying the 35 kilogram black dog probably has never reached his full potential.
“Master Winslow broke in well and I was really excited about his future prospects,” he said. “But a subsequent stopper bone injury has hindered his career to the extent that these days I’m just happy to see him go around safely and win the occasional race.”