Golly Gumdrops a likely cup contender
In Price’s kennels for only a fortnight, the black bitch was having her first start on the track when rounding up Saint Caitlin off the back before going on to a 7¼ lengths win in a best of day time of 29.92 seconds.
The win was the third leg of a treble for Price – his 12th at Tara Raceway this year – after Compton Peggy and Raw Luxury had been successful earlier in the day.
By Worm Burner out of Psychotic Gold, a winner of 18 races and $76,000 in stakemoney, Golly Gumdrops is raced by the Rovers Return Syndicate which is managed by leading Adelaide trainer Petar Jovanovic.
Price, who won the 2014 Christmas Cup with Who’s Doing What and again the following year with Fear The Rascal, said Golly Gumdrops, a winner of eight races at Angle Park and Gawler prior to relocating to the south-east, appeared to be appreciating a change of track and surroundings.
Local owner Kerry Hawker enjoyed another win with Cadillac Prince, a son of Unlawful Entry and Proud Fantasy that she purchased as a pup from Pyramid Hill breeder John Caulfield.
Trained at Edenhope by Cap Abbott, the blue dog settled in third spot mid-race in the Greyhound-Data.com Stake (512 m) before taking over off the back and eventually running out a 4¾ lengths winner over the consistent High Fly Emma in 30.30 seconds.
This was Cadillac Prince’s first success over the 512 metres journey since an operation for cryptorchidism in a bid to rectify his problem in negotiating two-turn tracks. His other two wins had been over 390 metres at Warrnambool and 400 metres at Tara Raceway.
Speaking after the race, Hawker said Caulfield was closely following the progress of Cadillac Prince and Abbott’s Another Pick who is a litter sister.
“John’s always on the phone after a win,” she said. “He’s genuinely pleased for us and I think that’s nice.”
A couple of races later, Mauritian Rascal, out of the winner’s circle since March, went close to causing a real boilover for Hawker and Abbott when leading for a long way in the Greg Martlew Autos Stake (400 m) before going down by 1¾ lengths to Midnight Daisy in 23.29 seconds.
In the past, Monarto South trainer Tony Hinrichsen had enjoyed plenty of successful days at Tara Raceway. Last Thursday didn’t start out that way, though.
In fact, such was the day that Rusty Fury didn’t even make it to the start in race 11 – the Metal Worx Stake (400 m) – scratched prior to being placed in the boxes due to illness.
So, as far as Hinrichsen was concerned, it all came down to the final race, the South Eastern Hotel Stake (400 m) and Szubanski Fury, a $101 winner at Murray Bridge two starts back.
But there was no $101 on offer for Szubanski Fury in this race. The brindle bitch jumped at $2.15 and won like a short-priced favourite should when leading all the way for an 8½ lengths win over Dressed Up in 23.18 seconds.
All of a sudden the drive back to Monarto South had become a little shorter.