Victorian trainer Kel Greenough hopes an incident on Paw Licking's flight back from Sydney last week will not have any adverse effects on his kennel-star when he lines up in the Group 2 PPK Mining Maitland Gold Cup (450m) on Thursday night.
Paw Licking showed he was the greyhound to beat in Thursday’s $40,000-to-the-winner with a brilliant 5 3/4 length win in his heat last week – a run in which he also set a new 450m track record of 24.87. But a mystery incident at Melbourne Airport last Friday turned into a distressing ordeal for both Greenough and Paw Licking, with Greenough unsure how it will impact the multiple group winner’s chances.
"We flew back down on Friday after the heats and there was some sort of incident which basically shut down the airport and the dog was stuck on the tarmac in his crate for about three hours," Greenough explained.
"Nobody could tell me what was going on and there was really nothing I could do. It was frustrating not being able to check on him or get him out.
"Add those three hours to the hour and a half flight plus driving time between Maitland and Sydney and it works out to be a ridiculous amount of time that he was confined for."
Greenough is relieved that the ordeal has not seemed to have major impact on his dog and credits this to his Paw Licking's calm nature.
"We are lucky that he is not a very over-excitable dog. He's quite relaxed and handled it as well as he could have," he said.
"He recovered reasonably well. He was a bit flat the next day, more so than you'd want him to be. But we had enough time to get him back into his training regime and we gave him some extra fluids.
"I won't really know to what extent it will affect him until tomorrow night but I think with him having the week to recover, it won't be too bad.”
Hoping to avoid a repeat of the situation this week, Greenough amended his travel plans and hopes it will benefit Paw Licking.
"This week I came up to Sydney a day earlier to make sure I gave him time to recover from the flight and a safe measure just in case an event like last week happened again. Fortunately, everything went okay this week," he said.
"If I had had the luxury of staying up in Sydney for the week I would have, but I had to come back to work with my other dogs. I just couldn't take the week off, so I just had to take the dog with me and deal with it."
After a sub-par trial at the track a week before, Greenough was impressed by Paw Licking’s performance in his heat and believes his greyhound can put in an even better performance this week if things go his way.
"You're always thrilled when the dog breaks a record. Just to win the race is always an achievement but when they do it and break a record in the process it's extra special," he said.
"When you break records everything has to come together. If everything comes together tomorrow for him I'm sure he's capable of going one better again.
"But you don't get too far ahead of yourself, just winning would be sweet enough for me.”
Although Greenough is of the opinion that Paw Licking can handle any draw he receives, he admits he was pleased when his chaser got drawn in box eight for the $40,000-to-the-winner final.
"Sometimes with dogs like him, it's not his box draw that is your worry, it's the dogs that are drawn around you," he said.
"If the dog on your outside is a fence-crasher it may not matter how good your dog, they can get caught up.
"With box one or eight at least you get a clearer run and more space with only one dog to your side. So box eight will give him an advantage in that respect."
Paw Licking goes in to the final as firm favourite on TAB fixed odds ($1.70), Greenough believes that the competition could be tougher than predicted.
"Fire Elusive in box two looks quick and ran the second fastest time last week. Kevin Johnson's dogs from box one (Rose Sannette) looks like it's suited off the red and has a bit of zip and Gradence has been a proven performer for a long time now," he said.
"He's not going to have it all his own way and if he makes a mistake everything could go pear-shaped but I think he's good enough to handle it."
The Maitland Gold Cup is the headline of a great card of racing at Maitland, which will be held in the night time slot rather than the track’s usual twilight slot.
The first race will be at 7.27pm with the Cup to be run at 9.58pm.
Click here for the Maitland fields, as well as form and expert selections.
