Millicent-based Mark Dwyer this week celebrated his first 12 months as the club manager of the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club (MGGRC).

And it’s fair to say that in his time at Tara Raceway he has gone out of his way to make people feel welcome at the track.

He’s also gone out of his way to acknowledge local participants’ achievements on the track.

The introduction of the twice-weekly Tara Tipsters competition, of which Dwyer is also involved, has benefited local charities such as the Sunset Community Kitchen, Foodbank, the Visually Impaired Club of Mount Gambier, the Salvation Army Thrift Shop and Quaran Care.

On track last Sunday was Vicki Clark, one of the Mount Gambier Community Christmas Day Lunch organisers, who gratefully accepted a cheque from the Tipsters for the upcoming lunch.

And adding to the social fabric of race days has been the record number of Tara Tipsters currently chasing the all-important bragging rights.

Recently, Tim Stoeckel from Greyhound Racing SA Marketing ventured down to a Mount Gambier race meeting and put together a terrific little Tara Tipsters video for Facebook which featured interviews with some of the tipsters and also charity recipients.

Coming on board this year as the club’s major sponsor, and with it the Mount Gambier Cup, was local car dealership Carlin & Gazzard MG, ably assisted by sales manager Adrian Jones.

It was a good cup to sponsor – the first Group 3 race to be run at Tara Raceway with the winner receiving $26,000.

It was also a good result for the locals – Moorak trainer Jason Newman winning the cup with Departure Gate.

In what was a record-breaking year, track records over 305 metres, 400 metres, 512 metres, 600 metres and 732 metres were broken during 2022.

In a bid to expand its training facilities at Tara Raceway, the MGGRC now has two automatically watered slipping tracks side by side.

And an area adjacent to the slipping tracks has been cleared with the intention of building a bullring in order to educate pups.

With a clubroom upgrade soon to be undertaken, a life members’ display has been completed in readiness.

Also, Bronwyn Nicholson has sourced all the Mount Gambier Cup winners back to the beginning at Glenburnie in 1981.

Provision is being made for the display of all winners – and for those in the future.

And Tracie Price, leading Mount Gambier trainer in 2016 and 2018, will win the 2022 Ian Badger Leading Trainer award.

Mount Gambier Greyhound of the Year will be Departure Gate who won 15 races and ran five seconds for Jason Newman.

Steve and Sindy are weathering the storm

Coleraine husband and wife training team, Steve and Sindy Colpoys, were back among the winners at Tara Raceway’s time-graded meeting last Thursday.

This time it was with Storm Shelter, the son of Zinzan Brooke and Shotgun Doll chasing Shell City for much of the 400 metre journey in the Metal Worx 1-4W Stake before grabbing a half head win in 23.55 seconds.

The win was the first for the Colpoys at Tara Raceway since August-September 2019 when Ima Maldini won three races in a row over 512 metres at the Mount Gambier track.

And as Steve Colpoys tells it, Storm Shelter – a maiden winner up the straight at Murray Bridge in October prior to last Thursday’s second win – has well and truly tested the pair’s patience.

“He’s one of Heathmere breeder-trainer Garry Marshman’s line and while he’s had a bit of success with litter sister Jean Crisp it had been a different story with Storm Shelter.

“So much so, that he was looking to place him in the Victorian Greyhound Adoption Program (GAP).

“But Sindy really loved the brindle dog and as we did not have any other racing greyhounds at the time we decided to have a go with him.”

Colpoys said Storm Shelter’s biggest problem was that he was a really bad box dog.

“Such were his box manners that twice he went back to breaking-in for re-education.

“But what we have found is that he does now seem to jump better from odd-number boxes.

“Without really knowing, it could be that being slightly longer in the boxes prior to jumping is giving him a little more time to become balanced and is working in his favour.”