Jason Newman starts 2022 with a bang
Jason Newman is still relatively ‘new’ into the Greyhound training caper, but his current run is simply scintillating, with he and his partner, Melissa Freitag sharing 10 winners from their 28 starters this year. Jason was a former business owner up in the Northern Territory, with up to 26 employees under his care, but an opportunity to move down South is so far looking like a good one. Jason helped out leading Mount Gambier trainer, Dave Peckham for a period of time, before moving out on his own.
“We’ve been on our own since March last year, so just coming on a year now. We’re in Moorak, just out of Mount Gambier.” - Jason Newmam
“I’ve got 10 kennels going at the moment and then just the rearing yards.”
It was an admittedly slow start for Jason when he was first moved, having just a couple of winners in the first few months. That all looks a long way past him now, with a flurry of winners to finish 2021 and a stack to kick off 2022. Jason puts it down to a couple of reasons.
“We finally got our competitive runs finished about 3 months ago and that’s certainly helped the team. It’s a lot more competitive free galloping so that’s been a big change. We had a few ‘cast off’ dogs at first but not so much any more. We’ve been able to attract a few better dogs and we’ve bought a couple of better dogs too.”
Away from the small team of Greyhounds, Melisssa works, while Jason describes himself as ‘semi-retired’.
“Mel works with ‘Pricey’ at trackside meats a few days a week and a bit of other stuff, I just poke around, sometimes I’m semi-retired and sometimes I’m not! I worked with the local member for a year, he asked me to help him out with his election campaign! I poked around with Dave (Peckham) and learnt pretty well with him.”
More recently, Jason has been making the 5 hour trip to Angle Park, tackling the City circuit. It can often be challenging for the Mount Gambier visitors to beat the ‘locals’ at Angle Park, but that certainly wasn’t the case on Thursday night, with Jason and Mel collecting two winners and a second between them. It’s a big effort to go on a Thursday night, but aside from the better prize money, Jason has more reasons to go.
“There's a couple of clear reasons. I'm starting to think if you can break ‘30’ at the Mount then you can pick up a grade 6 in the city. I’ve got a couple city class dogs that can run pretty well and I was pretty sure I could pick up a grade 6 with them. Departure Gate had won 2 in a row here and nearly broken the track record, so I had to find a race for him.”
“Mel will stay at home and do the dogs. The last few times we’ve decided that we will have a couple in at the Mount as well on a Thursday. Their has been times that we take the whole family but it’s a bit hard now we’ve got a few extra dogs. I generally try to leave about 11am and take my time. I leave it up my sleeve whether to give them one stop or two. I didn’t roll into bed until about 4am on Friday. We could have left earlier and I had to go drop off a dog. It was a much easier drive though!”
Jason and Mel also get a helping hand from their kids at home, with the large family all involved in training the Greyhounds.
“The kids really get into it. The younger ones love the pups and the older ones are really good with different things. They are now doing their catcher's licenses, so they are training for those. My son does a lot of the laser treatment for me if I am really busy whereas my daughter loves to talk to them, her favourite is Departure Gate so she just goes and sits with him.”
“We’ve gotta keep it going now! Our goal for this year is 50 winners because we got 35 last year, we’ve knocked 20% off that already!”
Hopefully the good run can continue for Jason and the team!
Photo: Jason and Mel when they landed their first treble