Success continues for O’Keefe

According to his trainer Gerry O’Keeffe, Tough As Nails couldn’t suit his name any better, and he proved this with a remarkable win at Warragul recently.

The 19-month old greyhound continued a run of success for his trainer, when he took out the Vic Bred Maiden Final in 26.40 seconds, adding a further $7500 to his total prize money.

Tough As Nails’ win comes after another one of Gerry’s dogs, Bells Are Ringing, took out the group one Sandown Cup at Sandown Park last Thursday night.

Despite watching last night’s win from afar in Brisbane, where Gerry is for Thursday night’s heats of the Group 1 Brisbane Gold Cup (710m), he was stoked with the win and described it as “fantastic.”

“I’m happy to win a race anywhere, even a tier three,” he said.

The trainer said the group involved, including Nar Nar Goon based owners, the Tillotson family, are making sure they don’t get ahead of themselves.

“We are riding the crest of a wave, but we can see the rocks on the shore,” he said.

“Luck such as we are having doesn’t last long in greyhound racing.”

He said the owners were “over the moon” with the success of this pup.

“Tough As Nails has shown us outstanding ability, and I think he has a huge future.”

“He’s the fastest one I’ve trained, but he hasn’t shown us his full ability yet.”

Gerry said his co-trainer Calvin Jones was at Warragul last night and described race four as “rough.”

“He said the race was quite rough, but Tough As Nails stuck to his name,” Mr O’Keeffe said.

Warragul Greyhound Racing Club manager Adrian Scott said while the dog was “slow to begin” he still managed a “smart victory.”

Race 10 also provided an interesting winner in Mick Mow, trained by Geraldine Debono.

He recorded his 24th race victory from 115 starts and won the race in 22.95 for his Lang Lang based trainer.

Whelped in November 2010, Mick Mow is one of the oldest greyhounds racing in Victoria, recording his first win at Warragul on January 21, 2013.