Littermates have plenty to yap about
It’s been a while now since those heady days of early 2015 when rookie trainer Ben Boers of Portland won the Mount Gambier Cup with his giveaway greyhound Lots Of Yap.
Actually, that win, with trainer and dog virtual unknowns at the time, still has to be one of best stories to come out of the 40 cups to have been run at Glenburnie and Lake Terrace East.
Lots Of Yap’s success, after gaining a run from box one in the final as a reserve, set the scene for further involvement from Boers and his wife Lizzie. It also opened up the prospect of down the track breeding with the cup winner.
The bloodlines stacked up pretty well. Her sire was Premier Fantasy, the 2004 Irish Greyhound of the Year, and her dam Have A Yap, a winner of 37 races including the 2012 Group 1 Waterloo Cup in New Zealand.
Lots Of Yap’s first litter had been a while coming, a “mix up” first time around ensuring Boers ticked all the boxes when she next came in season.
As far as sires were concerned, he’d been talking Nitro Burst – the 2008 Group 1 Vic Peters Classic winner at Wentworth Park – for a quite a while. Ultimately, that was the dog he settled on.
In May 2018 Lots Of Yap’s first mating resulted in two dogs and five bitches, the litter later being reared at Portland by Andy Graham who received three bitches as payment. They later raced as Bay Me, Rose Bay and See Nitro.
Six members of the litter have now won races, with three of them – Bay Me, See Nitro and the Boers’ trained Nitro Yap – contesting Thursday’s Winning Post Supplies Feature Grade 5 final (400 metres) at Tara Raceway.
And it was Bay Me who led all the way from box three, chased throughout by Nitro Yap but hanging on to win by a half length in 23.22 seconds. Making it a trifecta for the litter was See Nitro who worked home well to finish a further 2¾ lengths back.
Lots Of Yap is yet to have a second litter, Boers saying on Friday that she was due in season next month but he would have to speak further with Graham before any decision was made on her breeding future.
“At the moment we’re just not in a position to rear pups,” he said. “Maybe Andy would be interested if we can come to an agreement over the choice of sire.
“Perhaps a sire such as Zambora Brockie, who is attracting plenty of support at the moment, could be an option because he’s a son of Nitro Burst.”
Lots Of Yap currently sits in third spot on the Tara Raceway Leading Dams’ list with 17 wins, a fair effort given that the border closure saw the litter restricted to racing only in Victoria for much of the year.
