The Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club’s Anniversary Cup meeting run in late July is always one of the club’s better meetings of the year. And last Sunday’s was no exception.
The first meeting was run on Saturday, July 21, 1979 out at the club’s original track at the Glenburnie racecourse. 10 races were run on opening day over distances of 289 metres, 476 metres and 667 metres.
Then known as the South East Greyhound Racing Club, president was N. F. McDonald and vice president A. McFarlane with the committee comprising A. Mangan, I. Badger, W. Ward, C. Sims, N. Allchurch, J. King, N. Widdison and R. Potter.
On opening day, there were six bookmakers operating, two of those betting concession.
The first Anniversary Cup was run in 1985 and won by the Hazel Lane trained Kenzel Lad who also was successful again the following year when trained by Connie Miller who also won the race in 1987 with Durafi.
In 1988, the Ross Richards trained Tuscany was successful prior to Itsa Mission and Mishka Star winning for Allen Peckham, father of David, who trained five winners at last Sunday’s Anniversary Cup meeting.
By 1997, greyhound racing had switched to Lake Terrace East with the first Anniversary Cup won by the Col Sims trained Becker McLaren. In fact, by 2004 Sims had won a further three Anniversary Cups with Meg’s Temptation (2001), Tiarni Ball (2002) and Amber Rhode.
On track and thoroughly enjoying the day last Sunday were Kath Matthias and her team from Exchange Printers, sponsors of the Anniversary Cup.
And winning his first feature race at Tara Raceway was Ross Creek trainer Mark Johnson with Fireworks who defeated Terang trainer Mark Roberts’ Lektra Tony by 1¼ lengths in 30.09 seconds. In third place was Top Cadillac, trained at Edenhope by Cap Abbott.
Complementing the Anniversary Cup since 2005 has been the John Reid Memorial, a 512 metre heat and final series for maiden greyhounds, first won by Robert Halliday’s Itza Bee.
David Peckham won the 2006 Reid Memorial with Bourne Destiny and in 2022 with Lochinvar Cahill. He was also successful last Sunday with Bourne Model who defeated Saint Raine by three lengths in a quick 29.88 seconds.
In 2014, in recognition of another club stalwart, the Eric Lewis Memorial was added to the Anniversary Cup day list of feature races. The inaugural Eric Lewis was won by the Robert Britton trained Zipping Basil.
Last year’s winner was Zipping Neutron, who broke the still standing 732 metre track record with a run of 42.73 seconds when defeating In The Bug by 11¾ lengths for Adelaide trainer Tim Aloisi.
On Sunday it was the Jason Newman trained Redshift Uniform, recently back in Mount Gambier after a stint of racing in WA, who defeated Sher Zany by 9¾ lengths in a time of 43.81 seconds.
