THE Richmond Race Club will move to the semi-finals of its 2017 Richmond Races Series on Friday night as it prepares for one of the bigger nights on the club calendar.
The club hosted the heats for the series on Friday, May 12, and whittled the field down to some of the faster dogs, which will compete on Friday.
The dogs competing in this race series were all bought at the Richmond Riches puppy auction in November, 2015.
The club sold just over 300 pups that year, and they were all eligible to race in this year’s series.
Now, the fields are down to four semi-finals, with the first and second placed finishers on Friday night going through to the big race the following week, which has $120,000 in prize money up for grabs, including $100,000 for the winner.
In the heats, Jason Mackay’s Mister Twister was the fastest runner out of all the heats.
Mister Twister crossed the line in 30.50 seconds after crossing 535-metres.
Mister Twister had a very quick first section, posting a time of 5.31 seconds.
Not too far off Mister Twister’s time was the astutely named Fast Times, who ran a 30.56 second race.
This was followed by Kong (30.81), Bold Opal (30.85), Victor Charlie, pictured above (30.89), Wet Gambler (31.09), and, Good Odds Shakey (31.49).
Victor Charlie is owned by Hawkesbury trainer Sam Sultana along with daughter Michelle. Victor Charlie was purchased for $2200 in the 2015 auction.
Queensland trainer Tony Brett, who purchased last year’s winning dog Thirty Talks at the 2014 auction, again had luck in the heats, with Fast Times and also Opal Nera (31.56) making it through to the semi-finals this week.
Richmond Race Club general manager Brad Adam said Opal Nera was owned by a group of people from the Hawkesbury, with Aaron Lavender the first owner of the dog.
Adam said Lavender and friends also had Swift Ella make the finals.
Adam said he was pleased with how the heats race went.
“The club was extremely happy with a successful night and look forward to even better racing in the semi-finals,” he said.
“The club once again have a strong focus on family entertainment with loads of action for families with kids, plenty of jumping castles, great food and drinks.”
The club will host two more similar race series later this year, with the races across different distances in the later series.
Last week, Adam said the race series was met with a warm feeling across the club, because the industry’s future was now secure, after last year’s turmoil.
