Wednesday Beers Upsets The Darwin Cup Final
Fellow Victorian greyhound trainer Darren Murray and his greyhound Wednesday Beers last night upset Graeme Bate‘s seeming stranglehold on the $20,000 to the winner Darwin Cup Final, pulling off a miraculous form improvement in the process.
Starting as the 30/1 rank outsider in the field Wednesday Beers made light of the lack of confidence about his chances by bolting from the boxes to establish a commanding lead to the back straight.
But in comparison to his heat run where he compounded badly in the run to the line and let Our Movie Star and Not Tomorrow get past him; last night Wednesday Beers found and found again to hold Bate’s race favourite Dyna Forte to a .75 length margin at the finish.
Bate had started both Dyna Forte as favourite and Zambola Bale as second favourite in the final after Dyna Forte had gone within .02 of a second of Queen Lauryn‘s track record when winning his heat.
Queenslander Garis Garis finished third for Mick Emery a further 4.75 lengths back in third.
Last night’s success was Wednesday Beers 9th win from 49 starts and represents his first ever group success, with the $20,000 first prize dwarfing his previous career prizemoney total of just $15,595.
In fact the win might represent the greatest form improvement in recent group racing history, as Wednesday Beer’s recent form has seen him being beaten in lowly non penalty races and qualifying trials; a form slump that had him winning just 1 of his previous 24 starts.