Jodie Lord's Cawbourne Magic and Silver Luck won each of the Ladbrokes Newcastle Cup heats and while Bold Trease winner Stagger Out Lee's fast finishing second was impressive, the locally trained You Know Tree could upset them in all Friday's $25,000 to the winner final at The Gardens.
You Know Tree was badly hampered in the middle stages before flashing home to be runner-up, a length behind Silver Luck in her heat last Friday, and has provided trainer Lisa Lamb with her first big race finalist.
Lisa's husband Charlie Lamb has long been a leading Hunter Valley trainer but when he wanted to "sack" one of the family's greyhounds several years ago, Lisa took out a licence so she could keep the dog.
"Then, when I got the dog going okay, Charlie wanted it back, but I had my own licence by then so I told him no way,'' Lisa recalled.
"I think You Know Tree can improve in the Cup final because when she contested her heat she was having her first crack at the 715m trip at Ladbrokes Gardens.''
You Know Tree is a true home-grown product, as she was produced by the Lambs' Humming BirdHill, a daughter of Lisa's Tree, who was the offspring of Lisa and Charlie's former champion One Tree Hill.
Robert Britton trained One Tree Hill on behalf of the Lamb family for much of her career which resulted in 20 wins from 83 starts and over $280,000 prizemoney, with success in the 2008 group 1 Paws Of Thunder among her career highlights.
Legendary Hunter Valley breeder, trainer and greyhound chiropractor Johnny Munro and his wife Barbara will be acknowledged with races named in their honour at Maitland next Monday, December 12.
The card will include the John Munro Appreciation Stakes and the Barbara Munro Appreciation Stakes, paying tribute to the couple from Mulbring, near CESSNOCK.
Johnny Munro has an historic connection to mechanical lure racing, as his father John senior trained his first winner in 1930 while sister Noeline was the first female to be granted a trainer's licence, winning her first race at Gosford in 1948 with Sion's Gift.
Johnny and Barbara's best greyhound was Chadford, who held the Albury and CESSNOCK track records and who landed enough winning bets for the couple one night at Harold Park to allow them to purchase their property at Mulbring, which, unsurprisingly, is named Chadford Lodge.
But Johnny Munro's lofty reputation has been gained through his uncanny knack of being able to repair muscle injuries in both greyhounds and people.
Little wonder that in the late 1990s, when the Hunter Valley community organised a "This Is Your Life" function at Kurri Kurri Workers Club to pay tribute to Munro, tickets sold out within 30 minutes.
Newcastle Knights rugby league icons Andrew Johns and Paul Harragon, along with jockey Robert Thompson, who had ridden 4000 winners, took the stage to sing Johnny's praises as a masseur.
But the most telling comment came from the chief orthopaedic surgeon of Newcastle's John Hunter Hospital who declared: "I can't explain it but this man has God-given magic in his hands.''
Eureka Remi had not seen Wentworth Park before scoring her fourth successive win on Saturday night, a far cry from her dismal form leading up to her win at The Gardens on November 12.
Eureka Remi had been placed in just two of a dozen races before she registered the first of four straight wins at The Gardens on November 12.
And after Eureka Remi swept around the two pacemakers to hit the front leaving the back straight on Saturday, trainer Allan Woods conceded he was mystified by her surge in form.
"Eureka Remi was going awful until that win at The Gardens last month and then she won at her next two starts there too," Woods said.
"Now she has made it four in a row by winning at Wenty without having a trial on the track.
"Admittedly in three of these four successive wins she has drawn outside boxes and because she is a wide runner that has suited her, but I honestly don't know why everything suddenly clicked in for her.''
