Kai Bale sprinting towards National berth
Arguably one of the best nights on the greyhound racing calendar gets underway on Thursday night, with the South Australian Sprint and Distance Championship Finals being held.
An exciting series which is held each year, the winners from Thursday night will go on to represent the state in three weeks time on finals night, where they will compete against the winners from every other state at the Angle Park circuit.
The co-main event on Thursday is the State Sprint Final over the 530m distance, with our best sprinters engaged in the event. Three heats were run last week, with the winners being Adhana Rico (30.67), Fantastic Spike (30.57) and Victa Marli (30.74).
It was a terrific three heats last week and unsurprisingly they have pulled together a cracking final field. Kai Bale, who is trained by Tim Aloisi, will be looking to spring an upset on the field and turn around his narrow defeat last week where he ran second to Victa Marli, clocking a time of 30.92 himself.
Having been racing over the 595m distance, he has dropped back in trip at his last two starts. A few weeks ago he beat Amron Dan and ran 30.79 in the process, but was forced to have a short break after that, which meant he went into the heats slightly underdone, which Aloisi concedes was not an ideal preparation.
“His win over 530m against Amron Dan was disappointing, but in saying that he pulled up a bit sore was given 10 days off. I’ve since fixed the issues but it meant that last week he went into the run very underdone, all I could do was give him a slip on the harrowed track Sunday morning and from what I could see Thursday, all the dogs who trialled Sunday went average, so I was happy with his last week and he will improve a lot off that run.” said Aloisi
In a ripping field, Kai Bale has drawn box three which will suit his strong racing style, particularly if he can find a position along the rail early. He will need to handle the early speed which will come from the likes of Victa Marli and Where’s Poppy, but Aloisi believes he is good enough to do this.
“What a great race it is.” said Aloisi
“I think the scratching of the one (Zelda Chaos) opens it up a bit now. I’m pretty happy with box three, and I expect a big run from him. If he gets some luck early then he will be storming home.
“Whoever wins I am sure will make South Australia Proud.”
Best Bets:
Canya Extreme (Race 2, Number 1)
Kruger Lass (Race 9, Number 2)