Before the box draw for the $750,000 to the winner TAB Phoenix got underway, Ian Gilders said to his good mate Jack Smith: “I’ll go 1 and Jack you can have two.”
And so it was!
When the draw was complete, those two New South Wales runners, Ian’s Billy Creek and Jack’s Jungle Deuce, had boxes one and two respectively, and both now have the best chance they could have to figure in the finish of the slot-based race next Saturday night.
Forbes-trained Jungle Deuce is the People’s Pup, selected for the Greyhound Racing NSW slot after a week of voting in the Daily Telegraph, while Billy Creek from the tiny town of Beryl in the Central West , won the NSW GBOTA slot.
It’s often said you couldn’t get a getter box if you picked it yourself, and that was exactly the case.
The box draw was done in a unique fashion with the names of the runners drawn from a barrel, and the connections then having one minute to select the box they wanted.
It took the two NSW trainers only seconds to decide. Billy Creek the first drawn out and Ian Gilders took box 1, then as predicted, Jungle Deuce came out second, and Jack Smith almost sprinted onto the stage to grab box 2.
“I’m a nervous wreck but you can’t get better than that. Before the draw I said to Jack, I’ll go 1 and Jack you can have two. I can’t get the lotto numbers like that though.
“To have Jack down here with me too makes this pretty special.
“If he (Billy Creek) can just get a bit close to them into the back straight he will give them what for coming home.”
Jack Smith was also delighted having finally drawn a good box in Melbourne after a run of awkward draws with his dogs.
“I had to take charge to get a good one. Did you see me baulk at box five. I thought I’d give the owners a heart attack,” he joked.
“Everything is going to plan. He’ll be raring to go. We took him down to The Meadows on Friday and I didn’t go down to see whether he was a fast dog or not, we just went down to give him a quick look.
“We gave him a run over 400m (at Dubbo) and it was unbelievable, 22.49s (the track record is 22.38s) and that’s just flying. From box 2 hopefully we can camp behind the speed.
“Realistically we would love to win it no doubt, but it won’t be easy, there’s some very good dogs in the race, but we’re not going down for the hotdogs, we’re going for the money.”
The favourite Aston Rupee was the fifth dog out and trainer Glenn Rounds followed the trend taking the closest box to the rail, the yellow.
While he would have preferred closer, he was happy that he didn’t end up out wide in a less suitable box.
David Geall bucked the trend when his dog Koblenz, the TAB Melbourne Cup winner was sixth out but he went for box 8.
After the draw the market for the race with tab.com.au is: $2.30 Aston Rupee $3.40 Koblenz $8.50 Jungle Deuce, Wow She’s Fast $10 True Collinda $13 Spotted Elk $34 Vice Grip $41 Billy Creek.
