Rockies bring a touch of class to stadium

SATURDAY night’s programme at Tralee Track reflected well on the organisational ability of the Austin Stacks GAA Club, with the booklet carrying the racing information saying it all about that organisational ability, and it can reasonably be assumed that this particular fund-raiser raised a very nice dollop of cash to offset the costs involved in the purchase and development by the club of the “Nuns’ Field” at its Connolly Park location.

Racing-wise, there was an hour’s delay in proceedings because of concerns about the warm weather, as on Friday night, and the main focus was on first-round heats of two fairly valuable 24-greyhound sweepstakes.

The most valuable of the sweepstakes, for A5 class over the standard distance, was sponsored by Nolan’s Garage and Londis (winner, €1,500) and Lixnaw Fathead emerged as the fastest winner by clocking 28.95 in heat 1 (race 7).

Installed the 4/5 favourite, Lixnaw Fathead broke really well from trap 2 and he dominated to the extent that he had four lengths to spare at the line from Senahel Shadow.

In the process, he was completing a nice double for Lixnaw owner, John Gleeson, who saw his Lixnaw Squishy win a heat of the other valuable sweepstake run off on the night -- the €1,200-to-the-winner Denny KDL A7 525 Champions League.

Another heat winner in the Nolan’s/ Londis sweepstake was Garrison Post, a full brother (from a later litter) to none other than Clares Rocket. He clocked 29.12, while Fortwilliam Ash (29.00) and Discretely (29.22) were other heat winners.

So, next up are the semi-finals and the draw for them worked out as follows (trap order): First semi-final: Limitless One, Lixnaw Fathead, Fortwilliam Ash, Bright Helen, Chutehall Dauber, Slippy Zeus. Second semi-final: Discretely, Exiles Road, Garrison Post, Maximum Force (W), Purmac Wizard (W), Senahel Shadow (W).

Turning to the Denny KDL A7 525 Champions League, the fastest first-round winner was the John Kelliher-trained Ballyroyal Capri, a runaway winner in 29.12, while the other heat winners were Lixnaw Squishy (29.33), No More Heroes (29.47) and Oakfront Vermeer (29.31).

The draw for the semi-finals of this sweepstake is (trap order): First semi-final: No More Heroes, Kilcurra June, Boomtown Tony, Lixnaw Squishy, Killahas Ger, Ballyhar Emily. Second semi-final: Confident Bonita, Kilcurra Deacon, Stayaway Rose, Loher Blake, Oakfront Vermeer, Ballyroyal Capri.

There were only two other races on last Saturday night’s card and the winners were Confident Clara (30.11) and Knockunder Brody (17.82)..