Aston Dee Bee a Cup wonder
Melbourne Cup hero Aston Dee Bee extended his sensational winning streak to nine with another brilliant display in Saturday night’s Group 2 Warragul Cup Final.
Remarkably, the Seona Thompson-trained and Ray Bordaowned-and-bred superstar hadn’t been able to claim a Group trophy in 45 starts prior to his overdue breakthrough on the greatest stage of all, the Melbourne Cup.
But Aston Dee Bee’s Melbourne Cup triumph opened the feature race floodgates, with the superblybred son of Barcia Bale and Aston Elle subsequently adding the Group 2 Ballarat Cup, Group 3 Sandown Shootout and now the Warragul Cup to his resume.
“Forty-five years ago someone told me greyhound racing is a game of fluctuating emotions and at the time I said to myself ‘what are you talking about’, but I now know he was right,” said proud owner Ray Borda.
“One day you might feel like going out and buying 10 dogs, and two days later you can be asking yourself what am I doing? “I own a lot of dogs and when you’re in that situation you need one dog to keep your spirits up.
“For instance, on Thursday I had 10 greyhounds racing on different tracks all over Australia, six of which were favourites, but I didn’t have one winner.
“It used to be Aston Bolero that kept my spirits up, but now it’s Aston Dee Bee.”
The winner of five of his eight appearances over 460m at Warragul, including a track record 25.34sec at just his fifth career start, Aston Dee Bee was the fastest qualifier for the $47,000 to-the-winner Cup after a 25.49sec heat victory.
After drawing awkwardly in five, Aston Dee Bee started $2.30 favourite, ahead of his locally-trained litter sister, Aston Miley, prepared by Eddie Lieshout, the $4.30 second elect from box eight.
Aston Dee Bee settled in third position behind fellow Melbourne Cup finalists Aston Miley and Kouta Mayhem and after storming to the front turning for home, he sprinted clear to defeat the strong-finishing Jimmy Newob by 2.36 lengths in 25.53sec.