Britton Endorses New Veteran Class Events

GREYHOUND Racing Victoria's (GRV) recent decision to add veteran class races to metropolitan programs has paid immediate dividends with a group 1 quality field to greet the starter at Sandown Park on Thursday night.

12 nominations were received for the $8785 event leading to two races being drawn,  the first of which featuring group 1 winners Launch Code, Hector Fawley and Trooper Tears, dual Melbourne Cup finalist Buddy Monelli, and group 2 winner Dundee Rebel.

The six runners have combined to win 117 races and $2.15m in prizemoney.

FIELDS AND FORM SANDOWN PARK THURSDAY NIGHT

For Robert Britton, trainer of four-time group 1 finalist Trooper Tears, the addition of veteran races is pivotal in keeping greyhounds racing, providing the opportunity to set a program for four-year-old greyhounds.

"It's really, really successful in New South Wales and Queensland where they basically have a veterans race or sometimes two on their main meeting of the week," said Britton. 

"You need continuity in racing, and if you're only getting a race every three or four weeks it's not good for an old dog. If you know you're going to get a race every week I think you'll get a lot more people attracted to them.

"I don't like jumping around from track to track every week, so if you had one (a veteran's race) every week at Sandown, I'd stay there."

As for his chances on Thursday night, Britton said he was more hopeful than confident in Trooper Tears' chances. 

Heading to the track for the first time since chipping his stopper bone following his Group 1 Sale Cup success on Boxing Day last year, Britton said that he'd rather have Trooper Tears resume around one turn than head to the city, but the lack of options had forced his hand.

"Being a grade 3 on all of the horse shoe tracks, there's basically no races for him. You might get one every four weeks, but they just don't have Free For Alls,” Britton said.

"He's had two trials back, one over 300m and one over 460m and he's gone reasonably well. He went 25.63 at Geelong last week, now that's a good trial, but he has gone a lot quicker in his heyday. So we're not certain where he's at, but we'll learn more on Thursday night.

"I'm not getting overly excited because he's coming back from a fairly serious injury. He's a week to week proposition so we're taking him as softly-softly as we can."

The veterans race will be run as race 11 on the card on Thursday night, following the eight heats of the Launching Pad. A slot race series restricted to greyhounds with 1-6 wins and no more than 30 starts, the Launching Pad has launched the careers of many group 1 winning greyhounds – including Trooper Tears which defeated littermate Trapper Tears in the 2023 final. 

Coincidently, Dundee Rebel ran fifth in the final, while Hector Fawley and Launch Code were both eliminated in the second week of the series.