Thursday, September 27, 2018
It didn’t take 22-month-old greyhound Black Spring, trained at Edenhope by Cap Abbot, long to make amends for a first-up defeat at Tara Raceway last Friday.
By Spring Gun out of Lektra Scarlett, this is the youngster that had Tara Raceway track watchers taking more than a passing interest when recently running quick times at several trial mornings.
Now, it’s probably fair to say that at 75 years of age it takes a bit to get Abbott excited but it did appear as though, if you’ll excuse the pun, that he was getting around with an extra spring in his step – even more so after last weekend’s racing.
Black Spring made his racing debut at Tara Raceway last Friday in the Laser Electrical Maiden Stake (512 metres), being desperately light on as far as field experience was concerned. And that was quickly evident.
He was hopelessly away from box five and then found trouble wherever he went down the back straight before finishing a seven length second to Scully in 30.46 seconds.
Two days later he backed up again, this time from box one in the Winmore Greyhound Kennels Maiden (512 m) and while better away still had plenty to do as he chased the field into the first turn.
But Black Spring, an internet greyhound site pick-up after having been broken-in, had obviously benefited from Friday’s race, looking a different dog down the back before running out a strong four length winner over Cee Me Holly in 30.35 seconds.
A couple of races later on Sunday, Black Spring’s older half-sister Lektra Viki (by US sire KC And All), impressed with an all the way win from box six in 23.13 seconds in the Greg Martlew Autos Stake (400 m), the first heat of a grade five series.
Lektra Viki, back after a stint of racing in Adelaide, is owned by Phil Lenehan and now trained for him at Portland by his brother Nifty, who has also won two races this month at Tara Raceway with litter sister Lektra Brandy.
Their dam, Lektra Scarlett, twice a winner over 715 metres at Sandown Park, is a litter sister to Lektra Angie, the dam of former Tara Raceway 512 metre record holder Lektra Stomp.