Bob May
SUNDAY night greyhound racing at Gawler featured the running of the 2021 Gawler Breeder’s Classic, run over the 400m trip.
This is the first race to be run of the races available as part of the paid-up series for greyhounds whelped in the January-to-June 2019 period.
After two heats ran last week, the qualifiers took place in this week’s final.
Three trainers had a bonus by having two runners each engaged, with one proving successful.
Midnight Sebon showed the best early pace to go to the front, but was quickly challenged by Far More Crazy (box-one) which railed through to lead.
Far More Crazy opened up a three length break over the rest of the field, and was not challenged further to win by three lengths in a smart time of 22.86 seconds.
Second was Crazy Diva (box-three) which had run on well from mid-field, and Hukanui Lady (box-seven) finished third for Lisa Rasmussen of Murray Bridge.
The result gave trainer Des Hockley the quinella, as he trains both Far More Crazy and Crazy Diva.
The two greyhounds are littermates from their Fabregas-cross-Just Crazy mating, and are both owned by the Bazinga Syndicate, managed by Hockley’s partner Renata Maruszczyk.
Hockley had purchased Just Crazy as a pup from Mike and Karen Wittholz, and after a successful racing career, the Wittholz’s bred two litters from her, with some good performers among them.
Hockley and Maruszczyk then had Just Crazy’s third litter, retaining six themselves.
Hockley said there was usually only about a length between the two greyhounds in their performance, with Far More Crazy scoring six wins and nine placings from 16 starts, and Crazy Diva with 10 wins and three placings from 17 starts, proving to be consistent duo.
The next races in the series will be run at Angle Park over the longer 515m distance, which Hockley said he hopes his ‘Crazies’ will perform well over.
Hockley won the same series last year with Maddison Kaye, and said he is hoping for a repeat performance.
Having been involved with greyhounds since his early days in Broken Hill, Hockley is now located at Lewiston and gets plenty of support to manage his team from Maruszczyk and his new “apprentice” Brenda Oakey.
Another performer from the previous Just Crazy litter, All Out Crazy, kept it in the family by winning the final race of the day in a very quick time, running 22.69 seconds.
The Mike Wittholz trained All Out Crazy won by a length over Cheque Money, with Canya Bandido in third.
Racing this week will look a little different, with an afternoon meeting this Friday, and no meeting on Sunday.