Smart Betsy Draws Red For $20,000 Maiden Final

A favourbale box draw has placed Nowra greyhound Smart Betsy in a great position to take out tomorrow night’s $20,000 Laurie Healion Memorial Maiden over 520 metres at Wentworth Park.

The young bitch (21 months) bred and trained by John Tyrrell at Nowra will certainly be on the pace for tomorrow night’s final.

The daughter of Bombastic Shiraz and Awesome Berger has been in scintillating form in her two heat runs leading up to the final.

Smart Betsy is closely related (3/4 sister) to Tyrrell’s champion Bit Chilli, which took out the 2007 National Sprint Championship.

Bit Chilli was also by Bombastic Shiraz and out of Chilli Berger, Awesome Berger’s mother.

“The breeding’s close and it looks like Betsy (as she’s known around the kennels) has inherited a share of the family ability,” Tyrrell said.

She was impressive in her first outing in the heats, starring from box three, winning by an amazing 16 lengths in 30.18.

“It was a pretty impressive first up run,” Tyrrell admitted.

“She got out in front and just went on with it, winning by 16 lengths was huge,”

Her second run was just as impressive.

Again out of box three Betsy had to work a lot harder to record a half a length win in 30.31.

“She had to work through some traffic and then took a bit of a bump down the back, but held it together, recovered well and stormed home for a great win,” Tyrrell said.

So from 18 heats of eight dogs, Tyrrell now finds himself with one of the favourites for tomorrow night’s big final.

Although well-known in breeding circles, this is his first foray into the training game, and he admits he still has a lot to learn, but is loving it.

“In the past we’ve bred the dogs and then got someone else to train them” he said.

“Now with my father George and son Rad we are working up a team of dogs.

“It’s been a learning experience and exhilarating at the same time.

“Betsy’s a great little bitch, she’s shaping up well and we are having some fun with her.

“We have taken about 16 weeks to break her in, give her some trials and then race.

“She’s broken in well and hasn’t run a bad trial or race to this stage.

“Hopefully that can continue tomorrow night.

“It’s exciting that’s for sure.”

He says he’s delighted in drawing box one for the final.

“You couldn’t get any better than that,” he said.

“It’s a huge advantage and looking through all the heats and semis it’s been an advantage, I was hoping it would be our turn to draw it and it’s worked out that way.

“It gives her an opportunity to possibly make a mistake and still come again.

“She’ll run well from there.

“Seventy-five per cent of races are won in the first sector, if they run 5.50 or better they will usually go on to win, Betsy’s run that so if she can do it again tomorrow night, she’s a good chance.

“I don’t know what the future holds for her – we possibly could have had her in the national sprint finals, but she’s too inexperienced for that just yet, she’s too young and we didn’t want to put her in there and bust her up.

“We’ll see how she goes, maybe next year.

“There is a big $50,000 race coming up at Dapto (the Dapto Auction Race) and we will set her for that.”

He says his ultimate aim is to be able to breed a dog, break it in and then train it to a group win.

“That would be superb,” he said.

Courtesy : South Coast Register

John Tyrrell and Smart Betsy

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