Near Record: It's A Blaze Sets Addington Alight

IT'S A Blaze emphatically announced his arrival onto the New Zealand racing scene with a searing 29.64 gallop over the 520 metres at Addington last Friday. 

HUGELY talented greyhound It's A Blaze emphatically announced his arrival onto the New Zealand racing scene with a searing 29.64 gallop over the 520 metres at Addington last Friday. 

It was a sublime display of chasing by the son of Fernando Bale and It's A Fling, fluently cruising to his first Kiwi victory by a massive 18 ½ length margin while wearing the black racing vest.

He is now prepared by the potent Dave and Jean Fahey training partnership with the victory backing up his slippery recent 16.85s 295m requalifying trial effort.

Yes, there was a glitch to the start of his Kiwi racing career when, after a moderate beginning, It's A Blaze encountered early traffic issues, followed by an impeded racing passage when making his NZ race debut at the same venue five-days earlier.

Let us put It's A Blaze's stunning 29.64s clock into perspective.

He shattered the Addington Class 1 grade 520m record which previously stood at 29.75s.     

He was also just half a length shy of the Fahey prepared Bago Bye Bye's Addington 520m track record which the New Zealand Cup winner set at 29.59s.

The previous evening, under similar conditions, Holy Grail returned the quickest 520m time when the son of Fernando Bale and Mandy Junior took out the open class event in 29.99s for the Faheys.

"Yes, we're pretty happy with that," Fahey said.

"He had to get away alright which he did, then with racing space he took care of the rest. His time was pretty-handy," stated a rather modest Fahey. 

The Faheys have mentored numerous extremely smart greyhounds over the past couple of decades – they have trained in-excess-of 100 group race winners!

However, Dave refuses to be drawn into comparisons with other previous kennel stars.

"Yes, It's A Blaze is very good, although I want to watch him have a few more starts – he is potentially right up there.  

"We'll just take him along quietly at the moment," he advised. 

And that means there will be exciting times ahead for It's A Blaze's new owners which includes an amalgamation of syndicates headed by a number of long time and successful Fahey kennel clients.

Pawnote: The current Auckland region COVID-19 lockdown has forced a change to the looming Auckland Cup meeting.

Heats for $80,000 Auckland Cup were scheduled to be contested at Manukau this coming Sunday, however the group 1 527m heats have now been transferred to Sunday March 21 with the final now set down for Sunday March 28.

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