Graeme Bate Qualifies Four For Laurels Classic Final
An outstanding training performance from master mentor Graeme Bate has seen the Lara legend qualify four runners for next week's Macro Meats Laurels final at Sandown Park.
Already a three time winner of the time-honoured classic, Bate trained a winning treble with Langi Bale, Purcell Bale and Gunda Bale winning their respective semi finals.
However the night's opening semi final went to Jason Thompson, with his two year old bitch Miss Mozoltov winning in 29.56 seconds.
Owned by Thompson and his partner Seona Hood, Miss Mozoltov led all of the way to defeat Bate's Xylia Allen by two lengths. Thompson, a winner of the race in 2007 with Miss Hot Gossip, will be aiming to win his 12th Group race of the year in Thursday night's Group 2 final.
Langi Bale overcame some early trouble to win her semi final in stirring fashion in 29.69 seconds. Switching to the rails coming off the back straight, Langi Bale swept around early leader Sweet Millions and held off the fast finishing Born Ali by two lengths.
Purcell Bale again showed outstanding early pace to win the third semi final in 29.67 seconds. After setting a new first split record in her heat win, the half sister to Barcia Bale and Desalle Bale again found the early lead and proved too good for favourite Cintiarna.
The youngest and least experienced of the finalists at just 20 months of age and with five career starts, Purcell Bale has drawn box three for the third time in the series and will again be hard to beat.
In the shock of the night, pre-series favourite Ima Geisha Girl went amiss leaving Gunda Bale to defeat Oenjay Dancer by 1.25 lengths in 29.97 seconds.
First run in 1963, the Macro Meats Laurels is one of the oldest age-restricted classics on the greyhound racing calendar, and the $50,000 first prize makes it the richest race of its kind in the state.
$72,500 Group 2 Macro Meats Laurels Classic Box Draw (515m)
1 Born Ali Robert Britton 29.70
2 Gunda Bale Graeme Bate 29.97
3 Purcell Bale Graeme Bate 29.67
4 Langi Bale Graeme Bate 29.66
5 Xylia Allen Graeme Bate 29.32
6 Miss Mozoltov Jason Thompson 29.56
7 Contiarna Sandra Collins 29.34
8 Oenjay Dancer Ray Shiells NBT
9 Flying Sienna Corey White 1st Res
10 Sweet Millions Tina Womann 2nd Res