Smith's Rebel With A Cause Set For Take-Off

GEOFF Scott-Smith is hoping a resurgent Dundee Rebel can make a clean sweep of the Launching Pad when he takes his place in the $220,000 final on Thursday night.

Bred, reared and trained by Scott-Smith, Dundee Rebel won on debut in July last year and quickly rose through the grades, winning three in a row through September.

FIELDS AND FORM SANDOWN PARK THURSDAY NIGHT

However the early speed that propelled him to that early success deserted him as he went 10 races without a win before two unrelated issued saw him spend two months on the sidelines and give Scott-Smith the opportunity to reset.

A spike wound that required treatment saw him stood down for a month before a virus set him back further.

Dundee Rebel makes it 2/2 in his Launching Pad campaign and he's through to the Final with a 29.34 win!

Trapper Tears finishes second again and will also progress pic.twitter.com/LBsbn3iI7g

— Sandown Greyhounds (@sandowndogs) March 30, 2023

"He won those three races in a row and then he went off the boil," said Scott-Smith.

"He just lost it. I was watching and thinking ‘oh my goodness, he's just not the same dog'. He didn't seem right, seemed a bit flat, so he might have been harbouring that virus for a while. You wouldn't have known it to look at him, but you just never know what's going on inside them."

Back to full health, Scott-Smith brought Dundee Rebel back into work and it wasn't long before he locked his sights onto the Launching Pad.

"I did a bit of work with him and took him to Sandown to trial him. I thought he was going to run 29.70 or 29.80, well he went 29.22 and I thought geez he must be feeling good,” the trainer added.

"I always had the Launching Pad in the back of my mind. If he kept racing and didn't have the break, he probably would have gone over the six wins (Launching Pad is open to greyhounds with 1-6 wins). As it turns out it's been a bit fortunate the way things have worked out."

Despite a smart win when resuming in a heat of the Launching Pad qualifier, Dundee Rebel entered the series rated as a $101 chance and progressed to the final as one of just two undefeated greyhounds in the series – despite drawing box five in both his heat and semi-final.

Drawn box three on Thursday night, Scott-Smith is hoping the son of Feral Franky can continue to improve.

"He tends to use a bit of the track early, he just moves to the right a bit.

"In his heat he stepped reasonable then he copped a lot of interference around the catching pen and even down the back straight when he tried to pass them.

“He was a little bit fortunate to win that because they all piled up coming around the corner and he squeezed around them, but that's the nature of racing. You look at the time and they said he ran slow, but that's just the way the race was run. You know he can run quicker than that so it wasn't really an issue.

Box draw for next Thursday night's Group 3 #LaunchingPad Final at @sandowndogs ??

1️⃣ DRAGON INN
2️⃣ TROOPER TEARS
3️⃣ DUNDEE REBEL
4️⃣ AL'S ENTITY
5️⃣ STARLINE EXPRESS
6️⃣ VICTA ALBY
7️⃣ TRAPPER TEARS
8️⃣ METEOR MONELLI

Reserves

9️⃣ FALSE CONFIDENCE
? BLAZING DODGE#GreyhoundRacing pic.twitter.com/nzjJziyPZQ

— WatchDog Racing (@WatchDogRacing) March 30, 2023

"I thought last week in the semi coming out of box five wasn't going to worry him. I just thought he'd need to find an extra half a length or so early and he'd be right in it. I thought he'd improve last week and he did, he came out really good.

"Hopefully he can go a little bit better (this week), he just needs to find another half a length or so early to clear them, which I think he's capable of doing but you never know what's going to happen."

Did Scott-Smith take any of the $101 on offer at the start of the series?

"No," he said with a chuckle.

"He's racing for such good prize money in this series, I'll just let him run for that."

The Launching Pad final will be run at Sandown Park on Thursday evening.