Best Foot Forward (Gawler)
It is great to see newcomers to greyhound racing having early success. Brothers in law Nathan Wilson and Ken Trowbridge have only been in the game a short while and have already tasted success interstate. At Gawler on Tuesday, another of their litter achieved their first local success.
In the Rapidvite Open Maiden over 531m, their runner Sunday Shoes from out of box 1 led all the way to score a two length win in the good time for a maiden race of 31.02 secs, over Roland Reason and Uandah Bale, both trained by Lisa Rasmussen of Murray Bridge.
Sunday Shoes is a member of the Vapour Whirl by Foot Luce litter that the duo bred at Nathan’s property at Pinnaroo. The start to the story goes back to a radio promotion that Nathan entered, and although not successful in that competition, it was the spark that set things going. They decided to buy a racing dog between them which was Foot Luce, and although it had a short racing career ended by a race fall, Nathan and Ken decided to breed from “Lucy”.
Their own research for a stud dog came up with Vapour Whirl, and in the resulting litter, 10 pups were whelped. After the pup’s education period, Nathan and Ken were pleasantly surprised to hear that the pups were considered to be Melbourne class greyhounds. As a result, most headed that way and success followed, with Oakvale Destiny and Oakvale Flyer running the quinella in a Group 1 feature race in Mebourne. Oakvale Destiny has now won $116 000 and Oakvale Flyer $60 000, both from a handful of starts.
Sunday Shoes wasn’t considered to be quite up to the standard of the others, so returned to SA, where Nathan decided to try his hand as a trainer. As a result Sunday Shoes recorded a win at her second start, giving Nathan his first training winner. Nathan described the win as “unbelievable”, while Ken thought it was “absolutely fantastic”. Nathan’s wife Kerri and Ken’s wife Melissa are all part of the team and they are all thoroughly enjoying the moment. And who wouldn’t with this level of success.
Two Wells trainer Kim Johnstone was the only trainer to leave with a double, when Disco Dave and Cowboy Jury bothy won.
The work on the new facility at the track is expected to commence shortly, and this will affect some racing dates, so please check on gawlergreyhounds.com for a current calendar. Until advised, racing will continue on Tuesday afternoons, with the next Sunday twilight meeting scheduled for the 8th of June.