Bradden's ‘Flash' Run Continues

PAUL Braddon enhanced his already imposing 2018 strike rate with Metallic Flash, one of his two runners at Wentworth Park yesterday week, leading throughout at his first start at headquarters.

Metallic Flash took his record to five wins from eight starts with an easy win in a 520m fifth grade, carving out impressive splits of 5.47 and 13.87 before covering the 520m in 30.16sec.

His time was just .02sec outside the fastest time of the night, recorded by the Eileen Robertson trained Hello Robbo, another Wenty debutante.

Braddon rarely makes the trek from his home at Cowra to the big smoke but when he does, it's not often he comes away without at least one winner.

The bush training maestro has compiled almost second-to-none strike rates over the past decade. and in last week's percentage figures for NSW trainers, published in the Greyhound Recorder, he was among the leaders.

Before Metallic Flash's win, Braddon's seven greyhounds had contested 61 races and come away with 22 wins, a strike rate of 36.1 per cent.

On the 2018 prizemoney rankings, he ranked close to Barbara Spackman (55.2%), Hank Vanderburg (49.1), Jason Mackay (37.1) and Robbie Tyler (36.9) and was narrowly ahead of Jason Magri, with a 35.1 per cent winning rate.

And Braddon's wife Pam's eight greyhounds had raced 79 times for 33 wins, a 41.8% winning strike rate, between January 1 and June 30.

Ironically Metallic Flash, a wide runner, could have been sold before he even commenced racing.

After the dog recorded a slick 25.80sec in a 450m performance trial at Bathurst, a Sydney owner wanted to purchase Metallic Flash.

The prospective owner was undaunted by Braddon's fairly hefty five figure asking price but the sale was contingent on Metallic Flash trialling satisfactorily at Dapto.

“I wasn't prepared to go all the way from Cowra to Dapto to trial Metallic Flash so the sale fell through and I kept him,” Braddon said.

“He has been flying leading up to this Wentworth Park race, winning over 453m at Cowra in 25.86 on June 11.

“That was only a tenth of a second outside my top class sprinter Marbo's Magic's course record.

“Then, at his only race before coming to Wenty, Metallic Flash won over 516m at Dubbo, despite being run off the track by another dog during the race.

“Even then, Metallic Flash clocked 30.28, fastest time of the day.

“Metallic Flash is from our bitch Little Meeka's first litter, whelped to Fabregas in July, 2016.

“Little Meeka was a smart race bitch who won 16 races for us, and she was a litter sister to Crash Connor's, who won 34 races, and Hurricane Rino, a winner of 28 races.”