Lyn Smith and her team have been on the road for more than 100 hours in pursuit of the 2024 Ladbrokes Thunderbolt crown.
So far, they’ve covered over 8,500 kilometres in three round trips (with one more to go) from the farming district of Nambrok in rural Victoria to the Northern Rivers of Grafton.
But on Saturday night, a tiring month of toil will all fade away if Short And Stumpy can salute in the $75,000 feature final.
“It blows my mind when you tell me those numbers and you’ve also got to throw in all the wee, feed and petrol breaks so it sounds even tougher then. The most travelling she’d ever done was Nambrok to Shepparton which is about four hours so this has been something else.”
Short And Stumpy has only missed the frame on one occasion in her 33 career starts
“But it doesn’t seem to faze her and it’s been a team effort by our kennel…and it’s been worth it, 100%. There have been a few “what am I doing this for?” moments but we liked the idea of a challenge and wanted to do something different.”
“The biggest test has been the town of Bombala because there are kangaroos and wombats everywhere. You really want to get past there before it starts getting dark. I got to Goulburn last week and stayed overnight to give us both a rest and we’ll look to do the same on Friday night ahead of Saturday's final.”
Short And Stumpy is a $7.50 chance to join Integrity Mate (2022) and Vamoose (2023) on the event’s growing honour roll.
The 20-time winner earning her spot in the decider after claiming her semi-final in a time of 20.03.
“I thought she was in trouble when Canya Supersonic came across and almost pushed her into the running rail,” Smith said.
“CASH On Delivery [from Box 8] basically hit the front but our girl is just a tenacious little dog, she doesn’t like to lose, and she punched back up underneath him and finished the race off well.”
“It’s taken a bit more to get used to the quiet lure because it’s completely different to what she’s used to. And the boxes don’t seem to open until the lure is a fair way past as well so it’s taken a few goes to nail the run to the first turn. But she ran 19.96 in her trial and has had the two starts there now so we’re hoping she’s ready to nail it.”
The Victorian with the tiny tail (thus the name Short And Stumpy) bypassing the Pink Diamond series in her home state, which carried a purse of $50,000, to chase glory in the Northern Rivers.
“We had that option down here in Victoria and she would have been a good chance in that. She’s an equal first section record holder at Shepparton and when she runs those good early splits, she doesn’t get lead very much in Victoria,” Smith added.
“But we’re very happy to be in The Thunderbolt final. Unfortunately for us, it’s a really good field of dogs who can all run quick early splits. She’s also drawn Box 5 which doesn’t help, but we certainly didn’t expect this series to be a walk in the park.”
The third edition of the Ladbrokes Thunderbolt will be run on Saturday, June 22 at the Grafton Greyhound Racing Club. The winner will take home $75,000 in prizemoney.
