Beegumbah Rumba is off to the Northern Territory for the Darwin Cup after he won at Wentworth Park on Saturday in the fastest time of the night.
Trained at Young, in the NSW Riverina by Vicki Prest, Beegumbah Rumba gave his rivals a master class in a 520m 5th grade race, leading throughout in 29.98.
Beegumbah Rumba not only recorded impressive initial splits of 5.48 and 13.98, but he showed strength at the finish too, coming home in 11.87.
So confident were the connections of Beegumbah Rumba winning, they had booked the greyhound on a flight to Darwin on July 11.
Heats of the Group 3 Darwin Cup are on July 30 with the final a week later. Providing Beegumbah Rumba handles the Darwin track well in his trial, Prest will take him up for the heats in a bid to qualify for the final on August 6.
Winsome Mission, who turned four in April, came from seventh with 250m to go to win Saturday night's free-for-all by a head in 30.26. And while that time fell well short of the dog's personal best time of 29.62, handler Brad Barnes rated it Winsome Mission's best performance.
It was the greyhound's 24th win.
“That was an awesome performance, especially for an old dog who has had so many problems he is lucky to be racing at all,” Barnes, who was deputising for trainer John Finn, said.
“Winsome Mission is durable like his litter sister Winsome Amanda, who returned to racing and won at Wentworth Park after she had whelped a litter of puppies.”
The Jason Mackay-trained Riley Tokaam staged a remarkable last-to-first performance to win Saturday's Ladbrokes Monthly Medal final, which was worth $9800 to the winner.
Riley Tokaam showed his liking for a wide draw, circling the field from box seven to win by five lengths in 30.24.
The Punter HQ Syndicate of owners enjoyed their most successful night, winning a treble with the Peter Sims-trained duo Et Cetera and Beside The Truth who scored along with the Mark Davidson-prepared Comatose.
“When Comatose took off at the halfway mark and then ran into the back of a couple of his rivals I thought to myself, oh no, you clumsy dog,” Davidson.
“I could hardly believe it when he came flashing down the outside of the field in the straight to win comfortably.”
Et Cetera, a recent Punters HQ purchase, was having only his second start for the syndicate while Beside The Truth has now won seven of nine starts.
See you next week!
