Gibbons eyes Group 1 glory with Kelsey Bale in Sapphire Crown
Daniel Gibbons is the accidental gun greyhound trainer.
After living in Thailand for a year he returned to Australia looking to open a tattoo shop but would go on to train the current queen of greyhounds.
“I moved overseas to Thailand for a year and we'd come back home and my missus was looking for a job,” Gibbons said.
“I was just doing tattooing on the side and she started working part-time for my cousin.
“Then we just bought a couple of dogs and went from there.”
He now has prepared 2,037 starters and 387 winners — which, as Gibbons admits, is a boom result for somebody who never really had aspirations in training.
“No goals really, my wife was just doing it as part-time sort of work,” he said.
“I was trying to look at opening a tattoo shop and then the dogs started going a bit better than the tattooing was.
“So we jumped all in on the dogs and training.
“We didn't really have any goals or any expectations at the start.”
The kennel now has four dogs who have earned over $100,000 in prize money.
Their star is without a doubt the Feral Franky x Ethla Allen bitch Kelsey Bale, who in 63 starts has won 22 times and taken a further 24 times.
She is a five-time Group race winner, including four Group 2 events.
“We get dogs sent to us from Brendan Wheeler,” Gibbons said.
“She came down in one of the batches that he sent down. I think she came down with about 25 other dogs.
“When they come down we don't know anything about them. We just get them and start trialling them.
“From the very first time I trialed her, she almost went as quick as most of the race dogs we had at the time.
“I knew she was something good and then the week after she nearly broke the track record in her second trial at Geelong.”
Gibbons knew Kelsey Bale was something special and she continues to prove it.
Last week she took out the Warrnambool Cup, making it three Country Cup wins.
2023 Group 2 Warrnambool Cup Final – Kelsey Bale (24.95) T: Daniel Gibbons
In winning the Cup at Ballarat, Geelong and Warrnambool and the Country Cup Queen title she also earned the $50,000 bonus, but it means so much more than money to Gibbons.
“It means a lot and we don't take being given really good dogs like her for granted,” he said.
“We work our asses off, but I know a lot of other trainers work their asses off too.
“We are just lucky that we get dogs like her to train.
“Training greyhounds has really changed our life for the best.”
Kelsey Bale is regarded alongside stars such as Wow She's Fast, Baby Jaycee and Amron Boy, and Gibbons admitted he is excited to see his star prove she can come out on top of this class of chasers.
“The calibre of dogs around at the moment is just crazy,” he said.
“Looking back over the three years we've been training and there were periods, like six month periods, where there was just one dog dominating.
“I remember Simon Told Helen for six months he was just unbeatable and then there was Orson Allen where he was just unbeatable.
“Now it seems like I reckon you could throw a net over ten dogs that you could class as the best at the moment.”
Heading into the heats for the Group 1 Sapphire Crown on Thursday night, Wow She's Fast is favourite with Baby Jaycee and Kelsey Bale on the second line of betting.
Kelsey Bale has drawn box six for the contest over the 515m at Sandown Park, with her best strike rate from boxes seven and four.
“It's bad draw, but she's got a vacant box on the inside of her which should help her a little bit,” Gibbons said.
“I'm hoping that her, Wow She's Fast and Baby Jaycee all get through to the final and then we will see who's the best.”
Beyond the Sapphire Crown, Gibbons says that the plans for his kennel star are not locked in and a trip north to take on the Brisbane Cup in June (currently $9 odds) had not been taken off the table yet.
“We will make a decision after this week and how she goes in the Sapphire Crown,” he said.
“If I do go up there, I'll be just flying up for the day, staying in a hotel and coming straight back home.
“The least time she spends away from her kennel, her bed and her routine, I think is the best for her.”
The $1 million Melbourne Cup remains the focus for her campaign, but Gibbons added another potential run for glory for Kelsey Bale.
“I'd definitely love to go for the Melbourne Cup,” he said.
“I actually had a call a couple of days ago where someone wanted to lock her in for a run in The Phoenix this year, but I don't like looking that far ahead, you never know what's going to happen.”