Hector Fawley At Home Ahead Of Sandgroper

HECTOR Fawley has cast homesickness aside and settled in "beautifully" in Western Australia ahead of next Thursday night's $600,000 The Sandgroper (520m) at Cannington.

Owner/trainers Ian and Lisa Cockerell have left nothing to chance in their first ever WA campaign for the $300,000 to-the-winner The Sandgroper, where Hector Fawley will fill Ladbrokes' slot.

A bad traveller, Hector Fawley ventured west last Friday (April 5), giving the Victorian powerhouse plenty of time to acclimatise.

"He doesn't travel well at all, so I've been over here with him since last Friday," explained Ian Cockerell.

"We said to Ladbrokes when they chose him that we'd come over two weeks prior. 

"It's the first time we've ever raced in WA, so I wanted to get over and learn the ropes. 

"We're staying with Linda (Britton) and Chris (Halse) and they've been fantastic.

"Hector Fawley is as good as gold now but the first three days we were here he was stressed out, just with everything being new to him.

"He's really jumping out of his skin. We put him up the straight here this morning (Thursday) and he was supposed to go 350m up and 350m back but I reckon he went 1000m!

"He had a 200m jump out at Cannington on Tuesday night and went good and he'll have a full trial there on Saturday night."

A Group 1 middle distance winner of the Hume Cup, Hector Fawley will be making his second appearance in a sprint ‘slot' race in The Sandgroper.

The Cockerells' homegrown son of Bernardo and Rolanda Hooch ran a close third in The Phoenix last December.

Having won just one of five starts since clocking a scintillating 29.54 in a G1 Australian Cup heat, Hector Fawley appears to be a forgotten runner in the countdown to WA's richest greyhound race, drifting to $10.

However, Ian Cockerell's faith hasn't dimmed one iota, although he concedes Hector Fawley's chances will live or die with the box draw.

"He can win it for sure, but the box draw is going to be paramount," he said.

"He showed in The Phoenix he's good enough to win these (sprint) races. If you swap his box with Pass The Buck he wins the race.

"He's definitely fast enough and the big thing with him is that he can get checked and he'll keep coming, whereas some of the other dogs in the race won't.

"There's seven Victorians in the race and they barely know the track. At least our dog will have been around there a couple of times.

"The Western Australian dog (Sunset Frazier) will lead and it crashes to the fence, so I don't want to be drawn on the inside of it or on the outside of Trooper Tears!

"I'll tell you after the box draw whether he can win it!"