Rewind Ready To Run Race Of His Life
Tassie champ Rewind (Collide – Ricky's Angel) is cherry ripe for his assault on the prestigious $100,000 Hobart Thousand Final (461 metres) to be conducted at Tattersalls Park.
Eight heats of the time-honoured event will be run at tomorrow nights HGRC meeting, with the winners progressing to the rich final a week later.
A total of 34 interstate nominations have been received for the event, but all eyes will focus on Rewind, who will be attempting to avenge his luckless defeat last year by the outstanding chaser Dyna Tron.
The Maurie Strickland owned and prepared Rewind will contest Heat 7 tomorrow night from the blue box and will have to contend with the interstate chasers Kevin Bale and Oh So Smooth.
According to the veteran Bracknell based Strickland, his chaser is at the top of his game and is not badly drawn.
“He looks good and feels good – I cannot get him any better than he is right now,” he declared.
“In addition, I believe he is better suited drawn in the middle of the field – if he can't win his heat then he would have no hope of winning the final.”
Rewind is racing in superlative form at the moment, having notched up nine wins in succession and in doing so has increased his earnings to a very respectable $181,835.
Since being beaten by Dyna Tron, he has raced at Tattersalls Park on ten occasions for nine wins and a second placing behind litter-brother Penny's Angel.
Heat 1 of the Thousand will see the clash on two of Tasmania's most promising young greyhounds, Dark Warrior (Where's Pedro – Shanlyn Supreme) from the Ted Medhurst kennel and the Mick Stringer prepared Bearville Phil (Give Me Five – Von's Angel).
Dark Warrior has created a huge impression by winning his six starts and Bearville Phil has won ten of his 20 outings including his last four in succession.
Both chasers are relatively inexperienced and it will be interesting to see how they measure up against the interstate chasers Imry Bale (Go Wild Teddy – Amity Bale) and Proven Maddy (El Galo – Proven Lilly).
The Graeme Bate prepared Desalle Bale ( Go Wild Teddy – Princess Bale), a $212,000 earner, is the likely pre-post favourite for this years Hobart Thousand, which is sure to attract a big crowd.
Another leading contender could be Release The Heat (Slater – Rosey Rita) which blitzed his rivals in last week's Hobart Thousand Prelude, winning by seven lengths and recording a slick 26.01.
Meanwhile Tasracing CEO Elliott Forbes has said that it is pleasing that the Group One race, which is sponsored by Tattsbet, had again attracted top local and interstate greyhounds.
“It's and excellent result for the HGRC, which has been working with Tasracing to lift the profile of greyhound racing,” he said.