BOB MAY

GAWLER Belt trainer John Cunningham continued his great recent run at Gawler greyhounds on Friday, this time landing a double.

His first winner, McAlpine, came in race nine – a grade six event over 400m.

Drawn in box five, McAlpine was last on settling.

However, a sustained run from that point saw McAlpine continue to make ground, hitting the front as they left the back turn.

Keeping the momentum going, McAlpine drew away to win by nearly four lengths in a good time of 22.99 seconds.

Gotta Maggie (seven) was second for Lewiston’s Tony Fry, and Maximus (two) ran third for Lewiston’s Don Turner.

John’s next winner came in the following race, which was another 400m grade six event.

Jimmy Peruzzi, from box one, jumped best and got away to a three-length break over Dusty Divot (two) in the back straight.

But from that point, Dusty Divot started making up ground on the leader.

Dusty Divot really applied the pace in the straight and passed the leader with one-anda-half lengths in hand on the line.

Second-placed Jimmy Peruzzi is trained by Whyalla Norrie’s Yvonne Maxwell, and Spring Catch was third for Murray Bridge’s Greg Board.

Dusty Divot is trained by Cunningham, and he races the fawn dog in partnership with Matthew Payne and Andy Peden.

Surprisingly the name, Dusty Divot, has nothing to do with golf, but was named by Matthew’s son from a digital game.

The victory brought up Dusty Divot’s second career win from 10 starts, and completed John’s first-ever training double.

He was pretty pleased with that achievement, which partner Evie thought was well deserved as John not only put in a lot of effort, but had bred, reared and trained the litter as well.

The two wins took John’s tally to five for the year, all at Gawler and all in the past few weeks.

The premiere racing event on the local calendar, the Gawler Gold Cup, will be contested on November 3.