THE LIST: Every Tuesday PAUL DOLAN (famed race-caller and greyhound historian) presents his ‘best-ever’ list. Do you agree?

I first set foot on the Capalaba racetrack in the early 1970s. It seems like yesterday.

I was working in a bank in Brisbane at the time. I had heard about racing at Capalaba, but couldn’t get to a Friday afternoon meeting there because the hours for a ‘Bank Johnny’ were 9 to 5, Monday to Friday and that could not be changed. Short of taking a ‘sickie’ of course!

Attending the Gabba on a Thursday night was no problem. Me and about 7000 others were regulars there. But daytime meetings were different if you worked at a job described as conventional hours.

The bank brought in what was called ‘Flexitime’. You could take an afternoon off if you did extra hours of work in the mornings. I quickly worked out how to build up a credit of hours so as to have Friday arvo off and Capalaba here I come!           

The 311 metres straight track was at a different location to today’s 366 metres course. But it wasn’t far away, only about 50 metres closer to the long-standing Capalaba Tavern.

What I recall about that first visit, a Friday afternoon non-TAB meeting, was a  large ring of bookmakers not afraid to take a decent bet, fields of 10 called by the very exciting commentator Mick Cox, and cold stubbies of beer served on ice in bath tubs. And various punters who all seemed to have nicknames, like ‘Biscuits’ and ‘Lemonade Tom’ and ‘Chicka’ and ‘Bunny’. 

In 1977 the track was transferred to its current site. I got a ‘leg up’ into calling races there when Mick Cox decided to cut down his ridiculously busy work schedule and his replacement Martin Ross needed a back-up caller.

My mission today is to list the ten top Capalaba performers that I have seen grace the place from the 1970s to now. Gee, that’s going to be a task, how do you limit a list to ten? There are a few ‘gimmees’ though, so that will help.

If you have never been to Capalaba a lot of these names won’t mean much. Hopefully I can paint a picture for you of some of the excitement I have witnessed there.

Well, I’m stumped already. I have a list of twelve and am finding it very difficult to trim that back to ten. Is there a standout winner? No there isn’t. But there will be a winner. Let’s look at the dozen names, in alphabetical order.

BOMBAY BLUEY was trained by Greg and Michelle Stella. They actually feature with four of my twelve top performers. They purchased Bombay Bluey from their friend in Victoria, Gary Ennis, by Freewheeler out of Pom Pom. The dog won 23 races at Capalaba during 1992 and 1993. He was a very versatile sprinter with wins on the ‘one turn’ tracks at the Gold Coast and Toowoomba and on the much tighter circle track at Lawnton.

BROTHER BLACK raced from 1986 to 1989 and wasn’t he something special? The trainer was John Kaatz, a rugby league player of note in Ipswich. Brother Black won 30 of his 34 Capalaba starts. The son of Brother Fox and Alika Lass won the National Straight Track Championship in 1988 and 1989. The dog wasn’t purely a straight specialist, he had wins on the Gold Coast (Southport) and Tweed Heads tracks. I remember John Brasch’s call of the 1989 National Straight Track Championship where he declared that ‘it’s back to back for Brother Black’.  In the 1988-89 racing season, what was described as ‘the magical 20 seconds barrier’ was broken just eight times under race conditions at Capalaba – every time by Brother Black. That’s how dominant he was.

BURJ KHALIFA is appropriately named after the building of that name in Dubai. It’s 124 storeys or half a mile high. Burj Khalifa the greyhound rose to great heights at Capalaba. He won 10 of 15 starts there for Glen Monkman. He won the Capalaba Cup in 2014 running 19.51 and that race in 2015 in 19.69. His best winning sequence was five, and have a look at the times in those wins – 19.57, 19.51, 19.60, 19.79, 19.74.

COLUMBIAN KING is a recent Capalaba star, winning 23 of his 34 starts there for Jamie Hosking. He won the 2021 Capalaba Cup in 19.55. Competition is particularly keen now that Capalaba is a TAB venue and Columbian King has been just super. His best winning sequence was six, with times of 19.88, 19.73, 19.56, 19.50, 19.55, 19.73. There’s plenty of low flying there.

DAVID BLUE, now here’s one for the old geezers like myself! David Blue was the first real ‘star’ that I called at Capalaba. I couldn’t tell you the exact number of wins he had there, but it was a lot. It was in the late 1970s. The dog was trained by Rex Shipton, a part-time trainer based at East Brisbane, which is near the famous Gabba. Rex’s ‘real’ or ‘full time’ job was with the taxation department. David Blue, as his name suggests, was a blue coloured dog. The amazing thing is that the strong ring of bookmakers that I mentioned earlier would take the dog on most weeks. Their logic was that he can’t keep winning. But he did. In the 1978 National Straight Track Championship, David Blue won his heat, but had about seven inches stripped off his tail. He lined up for the final. NSW dog November’s Babe was drawn in box ten and took a left hand turn out of the boxes, checking David Blue. Jeff Ahern’s very talented sprinter Smart Paws won the final by two lengths with David Blue getting up for second placing despite his setbacks.

KEL’S IDEAL was a star for north Brisbane based trainer Edna Stafford. He was born in January 1985, by Fast Sapphire out of Queensland Greyhound of the Year Fawn World. Kel’s Ideal won 33 races on the Capalaba track, a record number of wins that stood for nearly a decade.

LAZY BUCK TOO was anything but lazy in his races. Whelped in November 1977, the dog won the National Straight Track Championship in 1979 at age 23 months for Ipswich-based trainer Jim Murphy. Amazingly the dog went into the series following wins in a Capalaba maiden heat and final. Despite his race inexperience his winning time of 20.27 seconds in 1979 was a race record. A big crowd was expected on October 1, 1980 to see that year’s final. But Capalaba experienced its first significant rainfall for a few months. And it was Federal election day. The crowd for the big race was well down on what was hoped for. That election, by the way, saw Malcolm Fraser elected for his third term in office. He outpolled Gough Whitlam in 1975 and 1977 and Bill Hayden in 1980. So, in front of a smallish crowd, Lazy Buck Too, the $1.90 favourite, lined up from box three. He scored by a length and a half over Capalaba Silver Collar winner Electric Bolt. The time of 20.59 wouldn’t win you a Capalaba maiden nowadays, but the track was very soft after all the rain that had fallen. The track record was 19.96. First prize was $1,000, a tidy sum at the time.

LEEROY ROGUE is an automatic inclusion in this list because the Jeff Crawford- trained dog holds the track record at 19.22. He set that figure more than six years ago, October 15 in 2016 to be precise. But even without that record time, his efforts of 13 wins from 15 Capalaba starts is a huge accomplishment. Leeroy Rogue won the 2018 Capalaba Cup.

LONELY DRIFTER holds the record for the most number of wins at Capalaba, that being 34. When you consider that was done in the late 1990s, it’s a remarkable figure. Greg and Michelle Stella trained the dog for family friend Marilyn Gough. Born on November 22, 1995, by Bombay Bluey out of Dolly’s Mission, Lonely Drifter was a straight track specialist. Michelle Stella says the dog won two races on the circle, but wasn’t really comfortable there. She says the dog may not have been the fastest Capalaba winner they have trained but he just kept turning up and winning. Being a reliable beginner was a big plus. Lonely Drifter has the bar at the Capalaba racetrack named in his honour. It’s called the ‘Drifter’s Bar’.

RYLEE’S ENFORCER from the Stella kennel won the Capalaba Cup in 2011 by five lengths in track record time of 19.40. The son of Black Enforcer and Tranquil Touch won the Michael Miller Memorial Maiden final that year in 19.76. After a perfect Capalaba record of six wins from as many starts, the dog was sold to Victoria where, trained by Gerald Lanigan, had the opportunity to race for higher prizemoney than Capalaba was paying at the time. The move was a success with Rylee’s Enforcer winning six of his nine starts at Healesville.

RYLEE’S RUMOUR. It’s another Stella straight track star. Born in February, 1999, the son of Just the Best and Tranquil Time won 13 races in a row in 2002 at Capalaba. 12 of those 13 wins were in sub-20 seconds time. He was the only dog to beat Mick Zammit’s flying machine Zaability at Capalaba when that dog held the track record at 19.54. Rylee’s Rumour won a four-dog Shootout staged as a ‘one off’ at Capalaba.

WALLOWA FLASH, now there’s a name that made headlines all over south-east Queensland in the early 1990s. The fawn-coloured son of Acacia Park and Flash a Coin, bred, owned and trained by Margaret Quarrell, was unbeaten in 15 starts at Capalaba. Among those wins was the 1991 National Straight Track Championship, which he won by five lengths in 19.93 from box two. The dog was Capalaba, Gold Coast and Queensland Greyhound of the Year for 1991, a feat not accomplished since and not likely to be repeated.

So there’s twelve names to ponder. In this column last week I highlighted the fact that a female (bitch) has not won the Capalaba Cup since the race’s inception nearly two decades ago. Well, my top dozen Capalaba performers does not include a bitch. That’s not by design. It just so happens that bitches do struggle against the males in racing at Capalaba.

Now, if you want to query why I don’t have the names of track record holders Economy Lass, Zaability, Migaloo Magic and Class Pass in my top dozen, you would have a very good point. Or regular winners like Elite State and Duel Enforcer. Put simply, trimming so many talented straight track performers down to twelve names was never going to be easy.

Here’s a couple of females who deserve honourable mention. Flying Amy won her maiden at Capalaba in September 1993. She was aged 16 months and ran 20.08.

Flying Amy then ran a track record at Toowomba for 390 metres and won the Gold Coast Futurity heat and final. After some injuries she returned to racing at Capalaba on April 2, 1994. It was a fifth grade which she won in 20.43. That’s not a misprint, it was 20.43. Then she won a third and fourth grade heat in 19.77 before suffering her first defeat when second to Running Fire in the final. The winner ran 19.73.

Back in late 1982 Neil ‘Thommo’ Thompson took a bitch named Madonna Lee to Capalaba for a fifth grade race. In those days any greyhound making its Capalaba debut was deemed to be fifth grade, no matter what their record elsewhere was. Madonna Lee was coming off a win in the 1982 National Sprint Championship grand final, held that year at Brisbane’s Gabba track. My memory is a little hazy about exactly how Madonna Lee performed. She either won her first Capalaba start and got beaten the next week, or vice versa. But she was certainly the biggest name to race at Capalaba at that time.

OK, let’s let rip with the drum roll. Here’s the envelope with the winner’s name. And it goes to ‘Lonely Drifter’ – the best that I have seen at Capalaba.

To use a well-known racecalling phrase, in a very packed field, you could throw a tea towel over the whole lot of them.