When litter siblings Blue Moon Rising, Poco Dorado and Veloce Nero finished first, second and third in Saturday night's 720m Ladbrokes Monthly Medal at Wentworth Park, it marked the third time they had supplied a trifecta.
Last Saturday Veloce Nero set the pace from Blue Moon Rising who took the lead approaching the home turn and won comfortably in a quick 41.97, with Poco Dorado coming from third early to edge the early leader out of second place by a head.
In the Group 3 Summer Cup at Wentworth Park on December 8, Poco Dorado prevailed over Blue Moon Rising and Veloce Nero while the John Finn-trained trio provided the trifecta in the same order in the listed Newcastle Cup, over 715m at LADBROKES GARDENS, a week later.
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VICTORIAN-owned Zipping Clive, who staged an outstanding last-to-first performance to win over 520m at Wentworth Park last Saturday night, will remain in the care of the Hunter Valley's Jason MACKAY until later this year.
Victorian trainer Matt Lanigan is manager of the Lanigan Clive Syndicate, which bought Zipping Clive for $20,000 last year from breeder Marty Hallinan, who had the dog in MACKAY's kennels.
Lanigan has had plenty of success buying dogs from Hallinan and won the 2016 Group 1 Hobart Thousand with Zipping Bruiser, a greyhound originally trained by MACKAY.
But after Zipping Clive failed to win in eight starts on tracks as far afield as Temora, Victoria's Horsham and Warrnambool, and SA's Murray Bridge, a confounded Lanigan contacted MACKAY.
"I agreed to have a look at Zipping Clive for Matt and rectified a couple of issues with the dog so now that he has bounced back to form he will stay with me for a while, with October's $100,000 Masters Meteor at Wenty his mission,'' MACKAY said.
The 2018 Masters Meteor, first held last year during the Million Dollar Chase carnival, was taken out by the Evelyn Harris-trained Cosmic Bonus.
Zipping Clive is probably entitled to be early favourite for the 2019 Masters Meteor as last Saturday he collided when fifth on the back straight and produced a super finish to come from fourth on the home turn and win in 29.94.
Incidentally, last year's Meteor victor Cosmic Bonus (pictured), who broke his own Casino 411m track record last Thursday, went into his Northern Rivers race without a trial after cutting a foot at Capalaba on June 23.
"Evelyn kept him on the lead between the Capalaba race and Casino Thursday so Cosmic Bonus was nice and fresh,'' Len Harris said.
"Thursday's win was the dog's 50th victory so breaking a course record was not a bad way to mark the occasion.''
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Hardaway Titan's winning streak came to an end at Bulli on Saturday night when the Ron Marsden-trained giant was run down by Bogan Doonie.
It was no disgrace to be overhauled by Bogan Doonie as she won at Wentworth Park last spring in blistering times of 29.49 and 29.44 for the 520m trip, making her among the quickest city winners of 2018.
Bogan Doonie has won each of two starts since resuming from a lengthy spell and clocked a slick 26.38sec for the 472m last Saturday, after beginning cleanly.
"When last in work she tended to be a slow beginner but since returning to the track Bogan Doonie has been jumping a lot better,'' trainer Neil Staines said.
"She is not quite ready to tackle 520m at Wentworth Park again but her comeback there is not far away.''
Meanwhile Friskey continued her extraordinary winning run by leading throughout over 365m at Nowra on Monday, taking her tally to 31 wins from 48 starts.
Friskey rocketed over the short course in 20.48sec, just .24 outside the track record.
