Old Spice, who took out the final event of Wentworth Park's Golden Easter Egg carnival last Saturday night, is proof that the adage "there's no room for sentiment in racing'' does not apply to the canine code.
The son of Lochinvar Marlow and Takeover Teddy, owned by Denise Priest and trained by her son Terry, was the all-time favourite greyhound of the trainer's father, the late Terry Priest senior.
"Dad passed away in 2013, when this greyhound was 10 months old, so he never got to see him race,'' Terry Priest said.
"But this was his dog, they formed a special bond, so when it came to naming the greyhound Old Spice was a natural.
"You see, dad always swathed himself in the after shave lotion of that name, and the family always joked anyone could detect him approaching from a mile away.
"Because of that the family still gets very emotional when Old Spice, who won a heat of the group one Brisbane Cup in November and who has won now six races at Wentworth Park, wins a race anywhere.''
Terry Priest, 48, did not come from a greyhound racing family but became interested in the sport when he learned his supervisor at his first job after leaving school was a dog trainer.
"I grew up at Jesmond in the Newcastle area so had been a regular at the Saturday afternoon Beaumont Park race meetings with my mates Richard Stock and Phil Roberts, the current Sky greyhounds race caller.
"Then, when I left school, I became an apprentice green keeper at a local bowling club and my boss was Graham Borrow, a successful trainer of greyhounds such as WORLD BALLERINA.
"Dad had owned a couple of racehorses but when I became interested in greyhounds he and my uncle bought a dog called Mohican Brave.
"Unusually for a greyhound Mohican Brave was quite savage and my job was to be in the catching pen for him when he raced because nobody else could get a lead on him.
"Mohican Brave was so fierce I don't think he ever had his earbrands taken and to take his mind off being examined for post race soreness we had to tie him to the clothline and feed him potato crisps.
"But he was a fast dog and won 13 races in the 1990s.
"I trained my first winner, Arratap, in 1995 on the old WYONG straight track, while my first city winner was Dashing Turbo in September, 1998.
"Dashing Turbo had previously won his heat, semi-final and final of the 1998 Maitland Future Stars Classic."
Priest has always been a hobby trainer but is about to give full-time training a crack.
"I have my own business, which involves blasting and painting for mining companies, but that industry is going through a slump so it might be timely to give professional training a shot.
"Over the past 20 years I have learned a lot from attending all the big country carnivals at Dubbo, Coonamble, Grafton and Wauchope.
"The late Alfie Small was a marvellous mentor for more than a decade when I went to the Wauchope summer carnivals while these day John Edwards, a very under-rated trainer at Paxton, is always generous with his advice if I have a problem with Old Spice or any of my team.
"I have a six-acre property at Sawyers Gully, near Maitland, with a licence for 40 greyhounds. There are a dozen race dogs but like most trainers we also have a farm full of retirees.
"Until recently my mother Denise has done the whelping and rearing duties but age is catching up with her so we are concentrating more now on the training side of the sport.
"Apart from Old Spice, my best greyhound was King Ninja, who ran 29.62 to win his fifth grade at The Gardens and was a Wentworth Park winner in 2012 and 2013.''
Other smart greyhounds Terry Priest has won with recently include Miss Huxtable (eight wins), Sull's Flame (seven wins) and Wild Torn Blazer, who won at Wentworth Park last month.
"Another Blocker, who is nearly six years old, is back in work chasing his eighth win,'' Priest said.
Priest cannot go past recently retired Fernando Bale as the best greyhound he has seen and Maitland is his favourite track.
"Because of the quality of greyhounds who race there Maitland is the hardest track on which to win a race but the fastest and best dogs do tend to win there.''
