With his long-awaited greyhound Group win now tucked in his back pocket, Dr George Clegg and his kennel star Big Bad Bob have the GRNSW + Ladbrokes Million Dollar Chase series in their sights.
Fresh from his $25,200 win in the Townsville Cup on Tuesday night, Big Bad Bob will now head to Ladbrokes Park Lismore for next Tuesday’s heats of the new event.
“It was fantastic to go up there and win the Cup,” Clegg said. “I thought he was going to win a good race for me. I took him up to Rocky (Rockhampton) a few months ago and he had no luck there in the heats of the Cup, and I had planned this for some time to have a shot at Townsville.
“I arranged so that Rob Lound would be able to take the dog for the two or three weeks leading up to the Cup and I’d fly up and back for each race meeting, and it just worked out terrific. Rob is really, really good with a dog, and everything came together on the night.”
Big Bad Bob is one 32 greyhounds drawn today in four heats of the Regional Qualifying series for the Million Dollar Chase. The top two from each heat will advance to the final the following week, with the first two out of that event qualifying to race in the semi-finals of the event at Wentworth Park on October 12.
“I’ll be honest, I don’t really think he’s a genuine chance to win it (the whole series), but the fact that they are having a regional heat at Lismore … he loves Lismore, he’s won five races there and he’s run fast time, so I just thought he likes the track, if he has a bit of luck, we might get into the semis at Wenty.
“I just think I will be great to be involved in it. I reckon it will be unbelievable. Look it’s probably inevitable that a very, very good dog is going to win it (the Grand Final on October 20), but that’s OK, and it wouldn’t worry me if I’m just making up the numbers.
“I’m not going to Chase it, but I’ll take him to Lismore, and if he happens to do ok, which he normally does at Lismore, then I’d love to take him down and have a bit of fun.”
If he does get to town and have a one in eight shot at making the $1 million to the winner grand final at Wentworth Park, Big Bad Bob will arrive with a 100 per cent winning record at the circuit.
“He’s had one look at Wentworth Park. He’d never had a trial there, but normally if they handle Lismore they handle Wenty, and he staged this incredible last to first win (on April 14),” Clegg said. “He didn’t run time but it was an incredible win, and he looked like he likes the place.”
The win broke a long drought for Clegg, who now has a GP practice at Mudgeeraba on the Gold Coast. His previous Wentworth Park winner came in 1975 with a dog named Kilbride.
“I got involved as a kid in the late ‘60s and then sort of drifted out of the sport,” he explained. “My mother took over one of the bitches that we raced and she bred with it and it threw an incredible litter and she won over 100 races with them.
“I only got back into the sport about 11 or 12 years ago, and it’s been pretty good in that time. Bob is the best I’ve had though.”
While Bob may be the best in the kennel, he has another one in his “stable” who goes alright.
Fresh from his trip to Townsville to collect the Cup, Clegg will be in Sydney on Saturday, at Randwick for the Group 2 Tramway Stakes, to watch Pierata, a horse he has a share in.
“I’m very lucky mate,” he said of being in the ownership of the four-year-old which has won five of 11 starts and more than $2.3 million in stakes. “That’s just a fluke. After the Townsville Cup win, my brother text me and said mate we should get a trotter and go for the Inter Dominion.”
But while he is having success in the thoroughbred world, the conversation quickly reverts back to the dogs and the future there.
“I’ve got a litter, 12 pups to Thirty Talks, which are nine months old, and the mother is being inseminated as we speak with Dyna Double One, so hopefully I can get a couple of good ones in the future.
“And, thanks to good old Bob … he’s just pottering along, and he’s paying for them all.”
