Robert Colpoys is another Victorian trainer who makes occasional trips with his greyhounds to Mount Gambier’s Tara Raceway and achieves a fair degree of success.

Based in the Gippsland township of Bass, Colpoys returned last week for the first time since February when he had been successful with Ziems Park Miss – an older half-sister to Redshift Papa, a winner at the past two Thursday meetings for another Victorian trainer in Michael Katsiris.

Involved with greyhounds for more than 50 years, Colpoys’ best day at Tara Raceway goes back to February 2020 when he landed a treble with Hook Along Mint, Pink Tiara and Hook Along Book.

“Somewhere home I have a newspaper cutting dating back more than 30 years which relates to the day at Healesville where I became the first to train a treble at the straight track,” he recalled when speaking of days of multiple winners.

Last Thursday kicked off with litter sisters Remo Trigger and Remo Adalli both running third for Colpoys in the Klaassens Contractors Maiden Stake (305 metres) and the Progreyhoundtips.com Maiden Stake (400 m).

Later in the day he had Nanna’s Blue Boy, chasing his first win since February when he had won his maiden at Warragul, engaged in the Carlin & Gazzard 1-4W Stake (512 m).

By Perfect Marshall, not so well known as a sire but a winner of 21 races and $167,000 in prize money, Nanna’s Blue Boy is out of five-race winner Middle Trucker who traces back to the US-bred Greys Lemon Ice.

Bred by David Willcocks, the blue dog was actually purchased as a pup by his niece Kath Newport as an interest for her grandmother – hence the racing name.

According to Colpoys, who took over the training of the dog after breaking-in, Nanna’s Blue Boy has always been something of a strange dog.

“I suppose you could say that he’s a very spooky dog,” he said.

“Even on Thursday when there had been a delay at the start he had become very agitated behind the boxes at what was his first time at the Mount Gambier track.

“But for all that, the preview had seemed to switch him on and I thought the finish-on lure would probably suit him.

“And as he usually jumps pretty well I thought he would probably lead Thursday’s race.”

As it turned out, Nanna’s Blue Boy made a real mess of the start with Colpoys later saying that so bad was his start that for a split second he wondered whether the dog was even going to take part in the race.

He soon put himself in the race, though, making up many lengths and then storming home for a 6½ length win over Saint Ollie in 30.38 seconds.

And it has to be said, the blue dog really turned on one hell of a performance for Nanna.


It’s official! Jarrad’s now a fully-fledged greyhound handler

He’s a cricket tragic, a Brisbane Lions tragic, a Mount Gambier Pioneers water boy and now a licensed greyhound handler.

We’re talking about 30-year-old Jarrad Williams of Mount Gambier whose most recent involvement with greyhound racing came about last year when he was a member of the Claro group who made regular Thursday afternoon trips to Tara Raceway’s race meetings.

And such was his interest that it was not all that long that he had his mum, Jo, driving him to both the Thursday and Sunday meetings.

Fostering the interest was Kevin “KD” Douglas who took on a supervisory role when Williams was looking to become further involved.

First it was a case of keeping an eye on him as he led greyhounds back to their trainers at the completion of a race.

The next step, which required Greyhound Racing SA licencing, was to become a catcher-attendant.

So, after a period of catching greyhounds at the conclusion of their races and then returning them to their trainers, it was time for Williams to move on to the next stage of his involvement – boxing greyhounds in trials and races.

That required a significant number of appearances at Wednesday morning trial sessions to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the steward in charge that he was proficient enough to box greyhounds in races and trials.

Finally the day came that he could don his white shirt, black trousers and GRSA “We Love Our Dogs” vest and lead out his first runner in a race.

That was last Thursday when Moorak trainer Jason Newman entrusted him to box Paw Some Sandor and later Space Cadet.

Both ran second and Williams passed with flying colours.

Now all that remains is for him to box his first winner.

But he’s mixing in the right company so that should not take too long.