The monthly Fast Forward time-graded 1-4 wins heats and final series over 400 metres will undergo a change in procedure after the running of this Thursday’s final at Tara Raceway for lower grade greyhounds.
As is the case at all Tara Raceway time-graded meetings, the Fast Forward – generally comprising four eight-dog heats plus reserves – is also graded worst to best.
However, the Fast Forward final, which carries Category 2 (Sunday) prize money, then takes the fastest eight from the heats, irrespective of finishing position.
Generally, the final heat (in theory the one containing the fastest greyhounds) will throw up the majority of finalists.
In fact, it is not uncommon for the first heat to produce no finalists.
And that was the case last week when the final heat, the Todd’s Photographics TG1-4W Stake, supplied four finalists.
The first heat, the Metal Worx TG1-4W Stake, provided no finalists.
Captain Rosie, owned and trained at Allendale East by David Peckham, took the Fast Forward time honours after gaining a start as a reserve in the final heat and running out a 9 length winner in 23.03 seconds.
By US sire Superior Panama, Captain Rosie is out of 21-race winner Sweet On Me.
Earlier in the day Peckham had been successful with Captain Rosie’s litter sister Bourne Sarah who at only her second start defeated Secret Wishes by 6 lengths in the Winning Post Supplies Maiden Stake (305 m) in 17.66 seconds.
Late last week the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club (MGGRC) spoke with Greyhound Racing SA (GRSA) Racing Manager Shaun Mathieson in relation to the Fast Forward time-graded 1-4 wins heats and final series over 400 metres.
More specifically, the discussion centred around a perceived unevenness relating to the four or more heats which tended to favour the later races given those runners’ time-based ratings.
After some discussion, Mathieson came up with the suggestion the 400 metre monthly Fast Forward heats and final for 1-4 wins greyhounds still be graded worst to best but the series be limited to only two eight-dog heats with reserves.
He said the fastest eight greyhounds would still advance to the Category 2 prize money final the following week while the remaining 1-4 wins greyhounds would be placed in one-off time-graded 400 metre races.
“Using last week’s time-based ratings at Mount Gambier as a guide, if we had run two heats then the ratings for the 20 runners (including reserves) would have commenced at 14.25 and concluded at 9.75,” Mathieson said.
“And with the other heats commencing at 9 and ending at 5.5 you can see there is a fair discrepancy between the first and final heats.
“Anyway, we’ll give the 1-4 wins time-graded 400 metre two heats a go next month and see how they work out.”
The only Fast Forward winner last week to miss out on a run in the final was Rise As One who clocked 23.96 seconds when scoring a three length win over Cawbourne Dior in the first heat.
But Glenroy trainer Richard Clayfield would not have been too concerned given that he had been trying for six months to win a race with the son of Hooked On Scotch and Majestic Tale.
Clayfield’s last win had actually come at a Sunday meeting on July 16 last year with Katoni, by Magic Sprite and an older half-brother to Rise As One.
And the long-time trainer put his most recent success down to a change in training tactics leading into last week’s race.
“Most of Rise As One’s work had been confined to walking and weekly racing at the track so I decided to slip in an extra run during the week and trialled him ‘box to box’ on trial morning at Tara Raceway,” Clayfield said.
“He certainly did not break any track records in the trial but following the hit out he did seem to run out his latest race somewhat better.”
