Queensland trainer Brett Hazelgrove will now head to the Lismore heats of the TAB Million Dollar Chase, after his kennel star Dam Slippery failed to qualify for the Casino Regional Final on Friday.
Dam Slippery, considered one of Queensland’s best sprinters, could manage only fourth behind Edelman in her heat of the Chase at Casino, not good enough to advance to next Friday’s feature.
Dam Slippery, although well placed behind the leaders early, couldn’t quite take a rails’ run through and was nabbed on the post for third place.
“She just doesn’t like Casino full stop,” Hazelgrove said. “She has never trialled anything brilliant here which you think she would. I wasn’t totally shocked in any way with her run.
“She’ll definitely go to Lismore. DIFFERENT track … DIFFERENT dog.”
The victory in the heat went to fellow Queenslander Edelman (pictured) who stormed to the lead up the back straight and raced away for a strong win in 27.54s.
Second went to locally-trained Noela’s Boy 3¼ lengths back, with Fran’s Bonus running home strongly to just grab third a further half-length away, just ahead of Dam Slippery.
The win was Edelman’s fifth in in his past six starts and takes his overall record to eight wins and six placings from 20 starts.
Winning trainer Tom Tzouvelis admitted he was pleasantly surprised with the performance.
“It was a bit of a surprise. He’s never raced in open grade before and we really brought him down with a view to give him a look for the Casino Cup a bit later on,” Tzouvelis said. “This was going to be his trial for it but he’s gone better than expected so it was a nice surprise.”
Tzouvelis brought five dogs across the border for the heats, and finished with two finalists, with Brandi Alexander finishing third behind Painted Picture and Stinger Noir in time fast enough to qualify for the final.
“That was her first look at the track. They burnt her off in the middle stages but she worked to the line nicely and they went 27.31s and they don’t go any quicker than they ran in her race,” he said.
“I’ve always supported these tracks down here and I race on them a lot. I think it’s great how they have widened it (the Million Dollar Chase series) to so many tracks this year, it really involves the whole state and for people like us who live over the border, it’s quite accessible. It’s a real good concept.”
While Dam Slippery was a disappointment for him, Hazelgrove did enjoy success in the final heat of the day, when Quara’s Flick led throughout to win in 27.42s.
Having only her fifth start for Hazelgrove, Quara’s Flick impressed holding out Wise Misty trained by Brett’s brother Craig, with another Queenslander Pitch Black Jet finishing third and gaining a berth in the final.
“She had a good first section, there was a bit of flat spot in the middle, then she comes home strongly … that’s her pattern of racing I guess,” Hazelgrove said.
“I think probably in the long haul she’ll be a 600m bitch but at this stage she’s still quite young and we have got this year ahead of us to see what we can do. But I knew when she got clear, they wouldn’t run her down. She’s very strong.”
Queenslanders supplied six of the eight finalists for next Friday, with local Painted Picture, trained by Mark Wilkes, the fastest qualifier with that 27.31s effort.
The box draw for the Regional Final is: 1 Stinger Noir 2 Edelman 3 Noela's Boy 4 Quara's Flick 5 Wise Misty 6 Painted Picture 7 Pitch Black Jet 8 Brandi Alexander 9 Fran's Bonus 10 Cash Point.
*Photo by Lisa Vanderstok
