When Merv Papworth was interested in purchasing a pup, he called well known Queensland greyhound identity David Brasch for a tip.
“David gave me two numbers for breeders, one in South Australia who didn’t have anything for me, and the other was Terry Jordan,” Merv explained.
“I rang Terry and made a complete fool of myself by saying I wanted to buy one of his pups. Terry said to me we only got her (Amy Lyndan his broodbitch) scanned yesterday and she’s not due to whelp for six weeks.
“We chatted for a while and I gave him Terry number and he said he’d call me in six weeks’ time when she whelped. And true to his word he called me and said she had a litter 11 pups. I asked if there were any dark coloured ones and he told me there was a dark brindle dog. I asked if it was for sale, and he said: “I’ll put a stamp on it for you Merv”.
“There wasn’t a specific reason why a wanted the dark one, but it’s turned out alright.”
That dark brindle pup was later named Fernando Blaster, and on Thursday night at Maitland he will be chasing his first Group victory of his short career in the Group 2 $40,000 to the winner Maitland Gold Cup.
Merv, who lives in Sydney, and Terry whose home is at Ettrick, north of Casino, instantly clicked – at least over the phone.
“He seemed like an honest person. I would get calls all the time to let me know how the pup was going, and get photos sent down, so I just decided to leave the dog with Terry,” Merv said.
Added Terry: “Merv just called and said: “can you rear it for me?” “Can you break him in for me?” And then “can you train him for me.””
After showing plenty of talent breaking in, Fernando Blaster headed to Grafton in July for his debut and after jumping slowly, did a good job of finding trouble and finishing well down the track. It was a similar story at start two at Albion Park in Brisbane.
“In those first few runs he couldn’t get out of his own way, just kept running into other dogs,” Merv explained. “Terry called me and said he had never had a dog with such inglorious form who could run this fast. I admit that I thought maybe it was just phone talk, but it wasn’t.”
Fernando Blaster finally put it all together at start three, leading through to win in 24.07s at Lismore.
“Terry has always said he’s a fast dog. He trialled 27.27s at Casino, and I don’t think too many have gone faster up there. And he won at Lismore in 29.46s (in October) and I don’t think they went that fast in the big races they had up there last year either (Raven Izmir won the 2018 Lismore Cup in 29.66s).
The wins kept coming, and Terry eventually tackled the Racing Queensland Young Guns series, ultimately finishing second to Common Ground in the final in January. He then decided to bring Fernando Blaster to Sydney for the Group 1 Ladbrokes National Derby at Wentworth Park, and after a stunning 29.61s heat performance, and drawing the one for the final, the son of Fernando Bale and Amy Lyndan was installed a short-priced favourite for the blue riband classic.
“He had no Luck at all in Derby Final. It was a huge run. He was in trouble on the first turn, and then was still there on the home turn and if he hadn’t had his legs taken there, he would have at least run a place,” Merv said of the fourth placing performance.
Another win at Albion Park – the 10th at his 24th start – soon followed then Terry was faced with a decision: head north or south.
“I tossed up between taking him to Queensland for another Young Guns series, or down to Maitland for the Maitland Cup,” Terry explained. “I decided to go down to Maitland – it’s a seven hour drive and 14 hour round trip – and trial him and thought if he runs around 25s I’ll nominate him for the Cup. He broke 25s so I decided to have a go at Maitland.”
Last Thursday Fernando Blaster stepped well and powered away for an impressive win in best of the night figures of 24.70s. Again the box draw went well and he came up with the red, and again, Fernando Blaster will go into the boxes as the favourite for the feature.
And the calls still keep coming. After the dog had won five of his first nine starts, Papworth was offered and subsequently refused a $50,000 offer for Fernando Blaster. And only last week he received yet another call from a prospective buyer, but again, there was no sale.
“We’re just having a lot of fun with at the moment. I’ll head up to Maitland on Thursday, and hopefully we get the result this time in a feature race,” Merv said.
