Abrial Taylor took out her trainer's licence as soon as she turned 18 recently and had a dream intRoduction to the sport last Sunday at Grafton when she landed a winner with her first starter.
Boston Budgies, who had been a birthday gift from her stepfather, Northern Rivers trainer Warren Kempshall, led most of the way in a 350m maiden race at his first outing since joining Taylor's kennels at Sandy Crossing, 25 minutes from Grafton.
A month earlier Boston Budgies, a March 2020 whelping, had finished last and sixth in his only two races, both at LADBROKES GARDENS, before Kempshall bought the dog for his stepdaughter.
"I have two greyhounds in work but the other one has not yet raced,'' Taylor said.
"My ambition is to become a veterinary nurse so I will be going to university to study veterinary science in order to achieve that goal.''
Hsiu-Mei Lin, born in the Philippines but with Taiwanese citizenship, has made the NSW country town of Young her home and embraced greyhound racing, training a winner and a second placing with her only runners at Bathurst on Monday.
Hsiu-Mei, who mainly uses her English Christian name of Felda, is married to former Australian Navy man Phil Reid.
Reid said: "I was in the Royal Australian Navy with Garry Streatfield, and when I was living in Canberra, he would call in when he was on leave and we would go to the local greyhound meetings.
"Later, when he started training greyhounds like Glenreagh Rocket, who won 30 races including one at Wentworth Park in 2014, he gave me a dog to train.
"That dog, Gentle Bob, was no world beater but he won eight country races so I was hooked on the sport.
"I believe greyhound racing saved my life because I had become a heavy drinker and after a stint running supermarkets had started mowing lawns for a living.
"I met Felda through mowing lawns on behalf of one of friends, another woman from the Philippines.
"Felda had been married and living in Taiwan until she came to Australia but retained her married Chinese name.
"We are in our 60s and love the greyhounds.
"While we have only four race dogs we also look after three retired greyhounds as pets.
"Felda and I have been given a lot of advice from both Garry Streatfield, who trains at Glenreagh, in the NSW Northern Rivers region, and Cowra trainer Rod McDonald, who won the 2009 Golden Easter Egg with Dana Beatrice.
"Rod has even given us some dogs, including Dana Dancer who won for us at Bathurst on Monday.''
Coonamble, Australia's most famous non-TAB series of country race meetings, will return after a Covid enforced hiatus early next year.
The carnival will get under way on Wednesday, January 26, with twilight and night fixtures, followed by a twilight meeting the following day and then a succession of races on Friday, January 28 and Sunday, January 30.
As always the carnival's feature race will be the 305m Ned Australia Whisky series, with the $12,000 to the winner final on Sunday, January 30.
Other features are the $2000 to the winner Garrard's Horse & Hound Super Maiden over 400m, Tyati Coonamble Cup (530m) with $4000 to the winner and the Multicam CNC Routers Mixed Final over 530m with $3000 for first past the post.
