The win of Compton-based greyhound Wild Milly in 29.43 seconds in the first heat of last Sunday’s Williams Crane Hire Christmas Cup (512 metres) at Tara Raceway now has the black bitch looking well placed to win her third feature race in the space of a couple of months.

Trained by Tracie Price for Tony Longe, the daughter of US sire Need My Moneynow and Wild Marilyn defeated Windsor Girl in last month’s time-honoured McDonnell Memorial (512 m). And at Murray Bridge earlier this month she was successful in the Anniversary Cup (530 m).

Price looks to hold a strong hand in the Christmas Cup which was first run in 2011. Dirty Dash, a recent 29.50 seconds 512 metre winner at the track, is also through to the final after running second to Wild Milly.

And Wild Milly’s litter sister Wild Star, who is raced in the same interests, is another one to take her place in the final after running Top Cadillac to a neck in the second of the two heats.

Successful in the 2014 Christmas Cup with Who’s Doing What, Price won the event again the following year with Fear The Rascal and again in 2020 with Golly Gumdrops prior to Mister Banjo’s win last year.

Top Cadillac’s hard-fought win also saw him finally take the lead in the 2024 Mount Gambier Greyhound of the Year (GOTY) award. With only two meetings remaining that carry GOTY points, the son of Feral Franky and Establish now sits on 57 points, three clear of kennelmate Mister Cadillac.

It was certainly a day of fast times at Tara Raceway last Sunday.

Aston Hornet, trained at Dennington by Dustin Drew, carved out a time of 34.66 seconds in the Cadillac Racing Stake (600 m) – only a length outside Giant’s Flash’s record of 35.58 seconds run two years ago.

In the Produce Store Mixed Stake (512 m), the Price trained Compton Gold, a daughter of Beast Unleashed and Minnie Banjo, led all the way when defeating Moonlight Annie by 2¾ lengths in 29.33 seconds.

Compton Gold’s time was 2½ lengths outside the record of 29.15 seconds, run by Rob Camilleri’s Uriel Bale in a heat of this year’s Mount Gambier Cup.

Minnie Banjo, all up a winner of 19 races, while being trained by Price ran a 400 metre track record at Tara Raceway of 22.42 seconds on February 6, 2022.

And for the second time this year at Tara Raceway, a track record was run or equalled, last Sunday by Lektra Tony who defeated Aston King by six lengths in the second heat of the Santa Sprint (400 m) in a time of 22.42 seconds.

Lektra Tony, a son of Houdini Boy and Lektra Jena, was bred by Phil Lenehan at Toolong and originally raced by him prior to the fawn dog relocating briefly to the Hammerstein kennels at Ararat.

Mark and Catherine Roberts of Terang took over the owning and training of Lektra Tony in early June and have now won seven races with him. He was also runner-up to Fireworks in this year’s Anniversary Cup (512 m) at Mount Gambier.

“I’ve been involved with greyhounds since the 1980s and I reckon he’s fast becoming the best dog I’ve been associated with, especially given he’s my first track record holder,” Roberts said after last Sunday’s record-equalling run.

“He’s a good hard worker in the runs, a good kennel dog and loves to race so really we can’t ask for much more than that.”

In the third and final heat of the Santa Sprint, Is He Lucky, a member of the promising Beast Unleashed x Made Me Blind litter settled in second spot before finishing strongly for a 4¾ length win over Chester Deeds in 23.18 seconds.

Purchased as a pup by the Hammersteins, the February 2023 black dog is raced by Doug Hammerstein and has now won 10 races from 22 starts.

And as far as the Williams Crane Hire Christmas Cup is concerned, well done to Princetown owner-trainer April Janssen and her son Louis on Swift Gift and Princetown Flyer reaching the final.

Swift Gift and Princetown Flyer go into the final having both won one race – at Tara Raceway over 400 metres.

It’s going to be a fair ask but this sort of thing has happened before. After all, April’s father, Paul Herry, some years ago won a maiden in ordinary time at Warrnambool and then promptly nominated the dog at its next start for a heat of the Warrnambool Cup.