Top five Queensland Winter Carnival highlights

Caption: The Jamie Marsh-trained Elite Machine dominated last year’s Brisbane Cup over short-priced favourite Postman Pat. (Photo: Box 1 Photography)

Former top race caller and greyhound historian PAUL DOLAN highlights five of his top Qld Winter Carnival moments, in his new monthly column in the Chase newspaper:

About five years ago I had a conversation with Brisbane Greyhound Racing Club chair Les Bein concerning the immediate future of greyhound racing in Queensland.

Bein said one of his missions was to try and elevate the Flying Amy Classic, run at Albion Park in the winter time, to group one status.

At the time the race was a group three worth $25,000 to the winner.

Here we are in 2024 and the Flying Amy Classic Final, to be run on June 6, is being run at group one level for the first time. It’s worth $150,000 to the winner.

Les is happy about that.

The first five runnings of the race, when it was known as the Queensland Puppy Classic from 1999 to 2003 were worth just $4,000 to the winner.

The Ron Ball trained Flying Amy is still held in the highest of esteem, even though it’s 30 years since she graced Queensland and interstate racetracks. She raced during 1994 and 1995.

For any race to move up the ladder of group status, it’s not a simple matter of increasing the prizemoney. Certain criteria and timeframes come into play.

The Flying Amy Classic has ticked all those boxes. The race is for greyhounds up to 30 months of age. It is one of the country’s highest-prized restricted age series and the richest of its kind in Queensland.

Last year it was a hometown win for the Rusty Dillon-trained Dundee Rebel who collected $150,000 for what was a group two race.

Thinking about Flying Amy brings back great memories for me, as I was lucky to be the caller of the majority of her mighty wins in this state. In a way it’s not easy to call a greyhound of her calibre, the reason being that you run out of superlatives to use.

Winter racing in Queensland has produced quite a parade of stars over a long period of time. Here are five of my favourites.

FLYING AMY: Even though her lone group one win at Albion Park was in the spring of 1995, there were two winter wins which were simply brilliant. They are the 1994 and 1995 Gold Coast Cups on the ‘one turn’ Parklands grass track over 457 metres.

In 1994 Flying Amy, starting as the $1.90 favourite, won the Cup by a two lengths margin from box seven in 25.32.

And what a crackerjack field it was. Dave Irwin’s Star Title, who won the Gold Coast Cup in 1993, ran second. Third home was Dennis Reid’s New Fox who went on to win the Top Gun later that year. Among the unplaced runners was Golden Currency from Victoria. He dead heated for first in the 1993 Top Gun.

In 1995 Flying Amy won the Gold Coast Cup from box six by one length in 25.31, a smidgeon faster than her 1994 winning time.

Very talented sprinters Markham Bales and November Forest ran the placings. Flying Amy was the $2.25 favourite.

RAPID JOURNEY: Like Flying Amy, this Jane Carruthers-trained champion from Sydney didn’t win a group one race at Albion Park during the winter. In fact, he didn’t win a group one in Queensland at any stage.

However, in June of 1998 he showed his true brilliance, winning the Queensland Cup on the grass track at Beenleigh.

From box one he jumped straight on the bunny and had lure driver Bevan Williamson pushing that lure to full throttle, something he had never done in a race or trial at that track.

The broadcast box at Beenleigh was surrounded by lots of people. As Rapid Journey proceeded to space his rivals, I used the words – ‘Look at this dog go!’

It got the crowd cheering even louder and I wanted to cheer with them. It was obvious that we were witnessing something very special. Rapid Journey won by half the straight. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration. He won by four and a half lengths in track record time of 31.75. 

Caption: The great Glen Gallon with trainer Tony Brett (Photo: Corey Pearce). 

GLEN GALLON: This Tony Brett-trained dog is the only dual winner of Albion Park’s group one Winter Carnival Cup. A more durable and genuine chaser you would not see.

In 2012 Glen Gallon won the Cup in 29.86 from Wy Yung Tiger and Zipping Catra. The following year he won in 29.80 beating Top Story and Xylia Allen. On both occasions the winning margin was four and a quarter lengths. 

Glen Gallon won 37 races in total, of which 28 were at Albion Park. Calling his wins was something like Flying Amy, he was such a regular winner of high-class races that you ran out of appropriate words of praise for his performances.

SENNACHIE: Albion Park racegoers got their first glimpse of this speed machine in the flesh in the Queensland Derby during the winter of 2019. He was surprisingly beaten in his heat by Broken Loose, but made amends in the final, scoring by seven lengths in 29.53.

The Steve White-trained son of Fernando Bale and Rhonda Rocks won the Winter Carnival Cup a few weeks later, setting a track record for Albion Park’s 520 metres distance of 29.38. That figure stood for three years and nine months before the Selena Zammit-trained Jay Is Jay clocked in with a 29.35 win in March last year.

ELITE MACHINE: Greyhounds trained on the east coast of our nation have a good record in feature races in Western Australia. It’s not the same in reverse, although to be fair, greyhounds from the west don’t campaign on the east in big numbers.

You could say that the Dan Williams-owned, Jamie Marsh-trained Elite Machine is an exception to the rule.

The ‘Sandgroper’ Elite Machine won last year’s Brisbane Cup during the Queensland winter carnival, going to the start as an $8 chance to upset the short-priced favourite Postman Pat. Elite Machine jumped straight to the front from box four and ran home a five lengths winner in 29.60.

This was the second group one victory for Elite Machine following his win in the $200,000-to-the-winner Perth Cup three months prior.

 

The Brisbane Cup last year was worth a staggering $1 million in prizemoney for the final, with Elite Machine taking the lion’s share of $650,000.

Good money if you can get it!

You may have observed that these five favourites of mine are all sprinters.

‘What about the stayers?’ you may be asking.

After all, there’s the Queensland Cup, Super Stayers and Ipswich Grand Prix run over the longer distances during the winter.

Don’t panic – Winter Carnival stayers highlights will be our topic next month in the Chase newspaper.

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