Lane Secures NZ St Leger With Ozzie

OZZIE was a stylish winner of last week’s $30k Active Electrical Christchurch New Zealand St Leger at Addington for 21 year old trainer Daniel Lane.

HE'S Ozzie by name and he has Aussie parents.

But he's certainly a full blown Kiwi bred, reared, trained and owned greyhound.

We're speaking about Ozzie, the stylish winner of last week's $30,000 Active Electrical Christchurch New Zealand St Leger at Addington Raceway.

Ozzie dominated the Group 1 event when he dictated the pace to his rivals, skipping through the 520m assignment in 30.01s for his 21-year-old conditioner Daniel Lane.

Yes, there were two Aussie bred and owned finalists contesting the decider.

The Jan Wheeler owned littermates Uthor Bale and Xabil Bale had to settle for the minor sides of the podium for their trainer Craig Roberts.

This trio had the finish to themselves with Uthor Bale gamely trying to hunt down the freewheeling Ozzie. He missed by a half-length margin, while there was another five lengths to Xabil Bale.

Daniel Lane has been enjoying phenomenal success since he stepped up into the trainers ranks. That success has come under the guidance of NZ Greyhound Racing Hall of Fame trainer Ray Adcock, the 85-year-old these days takes on more of a supervisory role at his Canterbury based kennels.

"Dan always listens and that's the biggest learning curve you can take on board," commented Adcock. 

"It was the best Ozzie has ever started (jumped). I knew he had the ability to feature if he could get onto the early pace. He showed plenty of guts to hold on as I thought he was going to get run down. Ozzie has gotten stronger and he has improved heaps lately." 

Ozzie is raced by Lane and long time Adcock kennel client Jose Arthur, who is fully supported by her husband Donald. The association all started back in 2012 when Adcock sourced Mini's Fantasy from Victoria with an eye to breeding.

"She has terrific breeding, being out of a strong line bred by the Bartolo's that features a Melbourne Cup winner. I conned the Arthurs into taking her and now they're reaping the rewards," chuckled Adcock.

"This win is more for the Arthurs than me – they have given me the opportunity of taking over training their greyhounds which I very much appreciate.

"I'm privileged to have Ray teaching me and passing on his valued knowledge and experience. It's a team effort at home with Ray, Donald, Jose and Jordan (Bryce) and we all get along together really good," added Lane who is currently leading the 2019/20 NZ trainers' strike-rate table with an outstanding 0.5476 rating.

The Arthurs have enjoyed considerable past success with progeny whelped by Mini's Fantasy, many of whom carry golfing themed names like Group race winners Tom Tee and Rosa Tee and that brings us to how did Ozzie obtain his racing name? 

Jose informs us. "Donald is a very keen golfer hence the Tee names we've used."

That naming theme is ongoing as Ozzie is named after the top former Australian golfer Greg Norman, who was known around the golfing tours as Ozzie!

 

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