Bailey Shelves Retirement For Resurgent Me And You

SIX weeks ago, David Bailey was contemplating retirement for beautifully bred Me And You such was the problems he was having with a persistent toe injury.

On Thursday night at Ipswich, Me And You will start favourite for a 732m Free For All coming off two 710m wins at Albion Park to stamp herself a smart stayer.

FIELDS AND FORM IPSWICH THURSDAY

Me And You is owned and trained by Bailey who five months ago had only two dogs in training on a two-acre property at Oxenford.

He has since bought a training complex at Smith Road at Park Ridge from Tom Tzouvelis and now has 40 dogs on the property, training, pre-training and rearing.

David was working at the Park Ridge property for Tom doing general maintenance and learned two of the Fernando Bale-Miss Gingin bitches were for sale.

“I really only wanted to buy one,” said David. “But, I also didn't want to have to choose which one, so I bought the pair for $10,000.”

Me And You has been a work in progress, staying was always going to be her forte but she had to build up to that distance.

“Her run home times as a youngster were always so good we knew she was going to stay,” said David.

“Her pedigree certainly said that as well.”

But it has not all been plain sailing with the bitch.

“She won a couple in a row but then started to have this toe problem,” said David.

“I would work on it all the time, but it would swell up all the time when she went back into work.

“It got to the stage I was contemplating retirement and breeding with her.

“But, I started strapping the toe every time she galloped and it has worked.”

So much so that Me And You stormed to a couple of 710m wins at her past two starts at Albion Park.

She has drawn the rails at Ipswich on Thursday night and David expects her to lead again and be hard to run down.

“It's the first time up to 732 metres, but she is on target for those much longer races coming up in NSW next month,” he said.

“First, she will go back to Grafton to run in the Country Cup heats.”

Bailey admits his foray into greyhound training came sooner than he thought.

“My family is still living at Oxenford at the moment but I'm working the property at Park Ridge with a worker we have on site,” he said.

“Tommy Tzouvelis has been a huge help to me and my guiding light since I started training.”

Me And You has won eight and earned $57,000.