Rawlings team ready for SA Sprint Championship heats
Peaky Boo Beautifully Drawn In SA Sprint Championship Heats
The 2025 Angle Park feature race calendar kicks off in earnest on Thursday night with heats of the SA Sprint Championship ahead of next week’s $22,000 Listed final.
Two strong heats have been drawn, with a first four required to book their way through their place in the time-honoured final.
Fresh off a strong 2024 campaign for his kennel, Ben Rawlings will have a strong hand in play for Thursday’s heats with four runners across the two races, including likely series favourite Peaky Boo.
The West On Poppy x Tommy Shelby chaser began 2024 with a series of impressive victories at Angle Park before finishing second in the Group 2 Launching Pad at Sandown Park.
However, a persistent injury halted Peaky Boo’s momentum, with the chaser having just one race start in seven months and was forced to miss a host of feature series including the Adelaide Cup and Gawler Cup in the back half of the year.
“He hurt a stopper tendon,” Rawlings said.
“We were really close to getting him up for the match races (prior to the Adelaide Cup) and at his last hit out, he broke the post-to-post record at Angle Park.
“Then the stopper tendon just swelled up only slightly so we thought it was best to let it go and miss that. We still thought he might make Gawler at that point but then as we would free gallop him it would just swell slightly, so we gave him some extended time off and tried some different things with him and managed to get it under control.”
Since returning, Peaky Boo has won three of his past five starts including the Kate’s A Scandal Christmas Sprint and a lightning 30.29 effort last week to win at Angle Park.
“Peaky is flying. We have been able to string a few races together with him which has been great, but he still hasn’t really had a consistent prep. He’s got a reasonable name locally, but he’s sort of still very immature.”
Peaky Boo will start as a hot favourite in his heat on Thursday night after drawing box one but will face stiff competition from the likes of Fantastic Spike and Zinfandel Trace.
Rawlings hopes the SA Sprint Championship can kickstart a strong period for the recently turned three-year-old greyhound.
“He’s come back really well and the draw on Thursday will obviously help massively, he just gets out from box one
“He’s won five of six from box one and the one miss was second in the Launching Pad. If he’s able to get out on the arm, I wouldn’t think they could run what he could run but we are just hopeful he can stay on the track and stay sound,”
Peaky Boo is just one of a strong quartet that Rawlings presents in the series.
Alongside Peaky Boo in the second heat is Versatile with the black bitch drawing box eight for the race.
Rawlings concedes she will have a tough time trying to match Peaky Boo but is confident that she will run well again and continue her consistent run of form.
“Versatile has been out with a similar thing (stopper tendon), but it was really minor compared to his (Peaky Boo),” Rawlings said.
“A freshen up will do her good in terms of bringing her out and I think she might jump up and land second to him (Peaky Boo). She will be found wanting a bit late, but she’s definitely getting better the more she’s gone around Angle Park and the older she gets she’s definitely getting a bit more reliable but it will be pretty hard fought catching him (Peaky Boo).”
In the first of the two heats, the Rawlings duo of Fear The Dragon and Pet Detective will have a strong hand to play and will likely start among the favourites for the race alongside Ashes winner Aunty Meeka.
Fear The Dragon comes back to the 530m distance following a stint over the middle distance, which saw him land the Bonfire, a lucrative race held during the Festival Of Fire series. Box two will assist the black dog and he will be hoping to find an early lead in the race.
“Fear The Dragon, we sort of made a call to go to ‘600’ for the Festival Of Fire because he was just getting a bit dour, but I feel like he was jumping over ‘500’ and then he would roll off and they would rail under him, then he would keep getting wider and wider and then wouldn’t finish on as well as he was,” Rawlings said.
“We thought that he could get to the lead (over the middle distance) as they aren’t as quick early and then he could just not have them under him, it worked as he won the Bonfire.
“We just gave him a two week freshen up to drop him back for this, so we will see how he sprints, he’s still very capable, I would think he would run 30.40 at worst, but whether he can find that 30.20, it would be nice, but we will see how he goes.”
The last of the four is Pet Detective, who finished 2024 in solid form after winning the Kings & Queens, the Country Cup before winning the Group 3 Gawler Gold Cup in October last year.
He has held a strong level of form since that effort and he will line up in the race on Thursday following a second to Peaky Boo last week. Pet Detective has drawn a little awkward with box five, but he should get the room he needs to.
“Pet Detective, I think he will relish the space, he’s been crowded in nearly every start since he’s come back,” Rawlings said.
“He hasn’t really got the start right back here either. He’s got plenty of upside, I just hope they don’t come together through the first turn, Fear The Dragon wants to step off a bit. I think they are both really good chances.”
“It's nice to have a couple of dogs to put in the heats and hopefully we can get something through to next week.”
The Thursday night card is set to start at 6:34pm local time with the heats of the SA Spring Championship to be run as races 5 and 6 on the 11-race program.