Caption: Jack Smith’s team with second placegetter Irinka Riley (left) and winner Jungle Deuce after the 2021 Brother Fox Cup.

By JEFF COLLERSON

MASTER trainer Raymond “Jack” Smith is a Group race regular at Wentworth Park, but plans to make an all-out assault on his “local” Dubbo track – 150km from his kennels at Forbes – for the Brother Fox Cup and the Bill and Peg Miller Memorial heats on May 13.

Smith, trainer of champion Feral Franky, won the Brother Fox with Little Digger in 2018, while his former Tasmanian Brad Hill Billy broke the track record in the heats a year later before finishing third to All A Blaze in the final.

Smith landed the Cup quinella in 2021 when Jungle Deuce ran down kennelmate Irinka Riley in 29.45 and in the same year took out the restricted class Miller Memorial with Miss Ezmae, later to become a top-class stayer.

This year the Brother Fox, known as the Dubbo Cup until 2021, will be worth $50,000 to the winner of the May 20 final, while the Miller, for greyhounds with up to two wins, has been boosted to $20,000 for this year’s final on the same date.

“At this stage I plan to have Red Hot Frankie, Palawa King and Royal Nangar in the Brother Fox, while in the Bill and Peg Miller I hope to be starting littermates Outlaw McGraw and Miss McGraw,” Smith said.

“Outlaw McGraw won his maiden over 457m at Temora on April 4 by nine lengths in 25.84, while the so-far-unraced Miss McGraw is going pretty good.

“I’m under strict instructions from Sandra and Chris Spratt, who own Outlaw McGraw and Miss McGraw, to win the Miller Memorial as Sandra is Peg and Bill Miller’s granddaughter.

“Naturally it is a race she would dearly love to win.

“I had a lot to do with the late Bill and Peg Miller. I dealt with them a lot, buying pups off them and so forth, and they were great greyhound people.”

Outlaw McGraw’s Temora maiden win was just .46sec outside the track record held by She’s A Pearl, not surprising considering he and Miss McGraw are bred in the purple.

They are by Shima Shine from Dennis and Ann Barnes’ former outstanding race bitch Nangar Diva, winner of 20 races and just on $140,000.

Smith’s Brother Fox candidates have first-class form, with Red Hot Frankie clocking a blistering 29.56 in finishing second to Mortified in a 520m Wentworth Park Free-For-All on April 8 and Palawa King boasting a flying 29.62 performance at that track.

Both race well at Dubbo, with Red Hot Frankie winning there over 516m in 29.66 last August and over 605m in 34.83 on February 11.

Palawa King was still a puppy when he scored over 516m at Dubbo in 29.77 on August 20, while Royal Nangar has been placed in each of his three races at Dubbo.

Royal Nangar, a litter brother to Smith’s Miller Memorial prospects, is improving rapidly and after recording 30.14 in his first WP win on March 18 posted a slick 29.86 in an all-the-way eight length-winning romp there on April 8.

Orange trainer Scott Board’s dog Spring Patriot chased home Zipping Maserati in 29.45 in last year’s Brother Fox final and is being prepared for the race again.

Spring Patriot has had six wins and eight placings from 21 WP starts and was beaten less than a length when second to Akii Princess in 29.80 there on April 8.

Spring Elegance, trained by Board’s son Joshua, won the Miller Memorial last year, while Agland Luai, who has won eight races at WP with a personal best 520m time of 29.62, is another Brother Fox contender.

Agland Luai is trained by Jay Opetaia, Scott Board’s teenage nephew.

Renaming the Dubbo Cup was a “no-brainer” as it is a fitting honour for the town’s favourite greyhound “son”, Brother Fox.

He was bred by Armidale’s Noel Hiscox but purchased as a puppy for $500 by Steve Kavanagh, then training his team at Dubbo, and raced by Kavanagh and “a few mates” including former western districts bookmaker Bob McLoughan.

Brother Fox was a son of Noel Pickett’s former champion sprinter Little Blade and Pitstock Park, whose previous litter to Wild Port included Acacia Park and Mister Biggles, prolific Harold Park winners for Kavanagh’s close friend Ron Brown.

Brother Fox won 15 of just 23 starts, his successes including the 1984 Vic Peters and 1985 Bi-Annual Classics at Harold Park, but Steve Kavanagh always rated the dog’s first victory, in a Grafton Maiden Classic in 1984, as arguably his best performance.

“He did a belly-flop coming out of the boxes but still won by 15 lengths,” Kavanagh recalled in an interview after Brother Fox was inducted into the Greyhound Hall of Fame.

“After that we were offered $25,000 for him, big money at the time, and later we refused $150,000 for the dog.”

Brother Fox was as successful at stud as on the track, siring the mighty Worth Doing and becoming grand-sire of Brett Lee.

Dubbo club president Shayne Stiff and his partner, trainer Charmaine Roberts, won the Brother Fox with Caitlyn Keeping in 2019 and that year also took out the Miller Memorial in near track record time with Don’t Mind Me.

Stiff said: “Our only likely starter in this year’s Brother Fox is Return Mac, who holds the Dubbo 400m record of 22.31 but can run 516m as he has broken 30 seconds several times over the Wentworth Park 520m trip.

“But even a dog of his calibre is going to find it tough, and while Charmaine and I have some promising maidens we think the Bill and Peg Miller might be nearly as hard to win as the Brother Fox.”