The home of greyhound racing in Victoria, Sandown Greyhound Club is 855km away from the Bulli Greyhound Club on the NSW South Coast.
This is the trip Jason Magri could have been making with Zipping Sultan after his boom youngster was penciled down to take part in the Launching Pad Series at the Springvale track last month.
The $420,000 event was however cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak and Magri, like all trainers across NSW finds himself racing in his local area under the new racing schedule.
While he acknowledges it takes some getting used to, he understands the changes are a necessity to keep racing and that trainers had to adhere to the new rules.
“Everyone’s doing their part to stay apart which is good,” Magri said.
His young star who was looking in fine for ahead of the Sandown showcase continues to go from strength to strength having claimed his sixth victory from seven career starts in taking out the 4/5th grade event at Bulli on Saturday night.
And while the run isn’t for major silverware, it was a performance that has left Magri with much to like.
“His win (Zipping Sultan) showed me that he can come from behind,” Magri explained.
“He had to work hard early and get across and the dog in front was running time too and he ran it down to a good length at the end too which was encouraging.
“He has got a lot of ability that dog and if he gets the box manners right, he could be a really nice dog.”
When a good dog arrives in a trainer’s kennel, there are usually eyes on major upcoming races however with uncertain times around race scheduling at the moment, Magri says it’s difficult to know where he will focus ‘Sultan’ on next.
“It’s hard to plan at the moment really.
“I was hoping to aim him up to a few group races but we’ve just got to wait and see what’s happening in the near future with racing but fingers crossed if everything comes back to normal in the future, we can aim him up for a few nice races.”
And it’s not just Zipping Sultan or the Group 1 Paws of Thunder champion King Cratos who dominate the yard at Magri’s Kemps Creek kennels with one of the biggest names in greyhound racing has joined the team – Good Odds Harada, who returns to racing over 400m at Bulli on Saturday..
“Yeah “Harry”, he’s settled in well, especially in these last two weeks he’s come around nicely. He’s enjoying his work at home now.
“I’ve given him two hit outs at Richmond and he’s flown both times so he’s on song for Saturday night and I expect him to go close to winning.”
“Harry” as he is affectionately known will step out in competition for the first time since owners Frank and Tracey Hurst decided to give their TAB Million Dollar Chase champion a break at stud and no doubt many eyes from across the greyhound racing world will have their sights firmly fixed on the Bulli Greyhound Club this Saturday night.
