A Century Up As Cooper Wins Another Feature
Twenty20 cricket is known for its fast paced games. Greyhound racing is known for its fast paced action. It isn’t overly common for centuries to be scored in Twenty20 matches; the Greyhound racing equivalent of a fast paced century was raised during the first race at the Manawatu Raceway on Monday afternoon.
Pictured: The recent Wanganui Cup winner Bigtime Cooper was Monday’s stylish NZRS Advanced winner
Monday was just the 40th day into the 2019/20 racing season, yet the Palmerston North based Lisa Cole kennels brought up a century of training successes for the new season when Big Time Tatum landed his maiden 410m Monday win.
There was certainly no thoughts of making a declaration from the Cole team as they went onto produce another nine winners during the 15 race card, which included a clean sweep of the placings in the feature $12,000 NZRS Advanced 457m final.
The Cole kennels are collecting the wins in boundaries as they now chase after the record breaking 861 winners ($2,086, 345 in stakes) they mentored to victory during the 2018/19 racing season. The Cole kennels have already blazed through the $250,000 stakes barrier with the 109 winners they have mentored so far.
Just two kennels were represented in the $12,000 NZRS Advanced final – six from Cole, while the other two contenders were provided from the Karen Walsh kennels. It was complete shut out for Cole.
The recent $30,000 Accell Therapy Wanganui Cup winner Bigtime Cooper was installed as the hot favourite following his sharp 25.77s 457m heat win the previous Monday. This son of Spring Gun and Night Pearl blazed away from the seven trap and he was never in any danger of defeat when he cruised to his feature win claiming it by a 5.25 length margin, clocking a respectable 25.79s on what was a cold afternoon. Commentator Mark Rosanowski was spot on with his postrace wrap up when saying, “He’s a freak this dog, an absolute freak. What does the future hold for this dog?”
There was a kennel dual going on behind the freewheeling pacemaker which resulted in the promising son of Barcia Bale and Marlisa in Bigtime Seth kicked on solidly to claim the runner up prize.
Steaming home out in the middle of track when sighted delivering his normal strong finish was Bigtime Levi and his momentum carried this very consistent son of Spring Gun and Bigtime Karen into third, a further 1.75 lengths behind, while holding a length margin over the fourth placed Bigtime Homie (Premier Fantasy – Sweet As Bro).
For the Cole’s it was total clean sweep of the entire bonus Breeder’s bonus dollars that is attached to all NZRS finals. Bigtime Cooper has now been to the races on 39 occasions and he is maintaining a high winning strike rate as this was his 23rd victory. He has placed in another five races which sees the Brendon Cole and Tony Potts owned chaser now with $61,647 in stake earnings (excluding Breeders’ bonus payments) listed beside his name.
Georgie Cole brought back Monday’s impressive NZRS Advanced winner Bigtime Cooper, while her sister Ella attended to runner up Bigtime Seth and Shane Kendall did likewise with the third placed Bigtime Levi (pics Palmerston North GRC)
By Peter Fenemor
