‘Unreal' Staying Prospect Set For The 715 Test
AFTER only 8 starts, master conditioner Robert Britton appears set to throw exciting stayer Unreal Speed in the deep end in The 715 at The Gardens.
AFTER only eight starts, master distance conditioner Robert Britton appears set to throw exciting young stayer Unreal Speed in the deep end in the lucrative The 715 at The Gardens.
The heats of The 715, which carries a $500,000 winner's purse, will be held on Friday, April 26.
Unreal Speed is a very rare offspring of Britton's former champion stayer Space Star.
Unreal Speed, which turned two last Thursday, made his city staying debut at The Meadows on Saturday night, where he raced away for a commanding 42.39 victory.
It was his sixth win from eight starts, albeit his slick Best Of Night effort was almost seven lengths inferior to Space Star's nine-year-old 41.93 track record over 730m.
"He's a fast pup and he can certainly stay, that's the good part about him," said Britton.
"I was really happy with him on Saturday night, although I was disappointed in the way he came out of the boxes.
"All the way through he's been running very quick times.
"At 14 months he trialled 29.40 his first time at Sandown. Then he ran 29.87 at The Meadows at his first start when he was 15 months.
"As good as he's gone and the times he's run, he has put in two runs that have been very disappointing, so I'm not sure how he's going to go when he steps up to the big league.
"But you've got to test them at some stage.
"I want to get him to Newcastle for a trial this week and I think we'll give him a crack at The 715."
Space Star, which hails from the phenomenal ‘Tears' line that has also produced stayers the ilk of Tornado Tears and Here's Tears, was a three-time Group 1 winner and multiple track record breaker.
"If he's not the best I've had, he's right there," Britton said of Space Star.
"He was outstanding.
"He was four in front in the Sandown Cup (2015) and was going to win the race by a long, long way when he tore his monkey muscle.
"He'd won about $450,000 at that stage, but we never got him back properly after that.
"I don't like breeding with drop-out stayers that fly home but you could put Space Star around over 500m and he'd run really fast time. This pup (Unreal Speed) is the same.
"It's actually a repeat mating with Shiny Bright.
"I trained two dogs from the first litter, Venus Light (14 wins) and Lunar Star (9 wins). They were no superstars but they could stay and both won around $100,000."
Unreal Speed isn't the only member of Britton's team set to trial interstate this week.
Beaten G1 Perth Cup favourite Trooper Tears is heading back to Cannington in preparation for Thursday week's (April 18) $600,000 The Sandgroper.
Trooper Tears will race in the Total Container Solutions/Team Britton slot, with the group chasing back-to-back wins in WA's richest greyhound race after selecting inaugural winner Crumble Monelli.
"I'm really happy with him," Britton said.
"I trialled him at Geelong last week and he went really quick – 25.24.
"I'm taking him back to Perth on Tuesday (today) to trial.
"The box draw is going to be critical. He wants to draw a bit off the track.
"A few other slot holders were interested in him too and I kept right out of the decision-making process because I trained the dog. I didn't want to get involved at all."
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