Chris Field has had greyhounds in his life since the 1960’s but he admits he’s never had one as good as Ladbrokes Grafton Cup favourite, Field Day.
The 73-year-old excited at the prospect of sending his young gun around his expansive home track in Wednesday night’s $25,000 feature final.
“I’ve always trained a dog on and off and I’ve had handy dogs but he’s the best I’ve had…this dog is just consistently fast,” Field said.
Field Day ran 25.24 in the heats of the Grafton Cup to be the second fastest qualifier for the decider behind Heidi Mcgraw
“It’s a bit hard to judge just how good he is yet. He broke in and has done all his racing at Grafton so I don’t know how he’d go anywhere else. With a clear run over the 450m, I think he could break the track record here though which means he’s probably alright.”
The son of Hooked On Scotch out of Magical Mia will ride a five win streak into his maiden Group race appearance, with each victory over the Grafton 450m stopping the clock somewhere between 25.15 and 25.34.
His heat performance was particularly impressive with the youngster forcing his way into the clear as the field rounded the bend, before unleashing a powerful finish down the centre of the track.
“It was a nice win. He’s 40kg and I’ve never seen him jump in front, he’s never lead clearly in a race, so I don’t think that’s his go,” Field added.
“If you put all the finalists away in a single trial, he’d win it based on time. He’ll run 25.1 every time you trial him there. But that’s not how the big finals are run and won. He’s only had six starts and he hasn’t had a lot of racing against really good dogs so we’ll see how he handles it.”
Box 6 in the final might suit him because he’ll run straight to the first corner but he wants clean air. I’ve got a couple of friends in the race like Dennis Barnes, Reggie Gardoll is a mate, Kevin Turner is a good friend too. So no matter who wins, we’ll all have a beer afterwards, but I hope I win so I can have a few extra.”
The dog they call ‘Tony’ taking his talents south after Wednesday’s final, with Australia’s best trainer, Jason Thompson, agreeing to temporarily take over training duties of the emerging sprinter.
“Jason [Thompson] called me up the other week and said he’d been talking to Dennis Barnes about the dog and he wanted to test him out down there, so he’ll go down to Melbourne next week,” Field said.
“Mark Wilkes wanted to buy him and give him to Tony Brett to train up in QLD and Anthony Azzopardi called me up about him as well, so I’ve had some interest in him. He’ll be with one of the best in the business with Thompson and he’ll be able to tell me if he’s any good pretty quickly.”
“Victorian racing might suit him because there’s plenty of one turn tracks down there. But in saying that, the way the whole litter run up my straight track at home and quickly turn around and chase, none of them will have issues going around the circle.”
Field racing the dog in honour of his late mate, Daryl Bates, who sadly passed away in 2023.
“Without Daryl these dogs wouldn’t be going any good. He let me breed, rear, and train them on his farm and I’m still here despite what happened,” he said.
“Daryl had a bad headache one night, so I sent him to bed and got the teas ready myself. I last heard him talking to his wife at 8pm and the next time I saw him, he was lying on the bathroom floor. They thought he had a stroke sometime in the night. It was very sad, and I owe any success we have with this dog to him.”
Field Day’s litter includes nine starters who have each won multiple races, while combined, they’ve competed 79 times for 33 wins.
