Greyhound trainer’s lucky 13
Canterbury greyhound trainer John McInerney had a decent chance of winning a few races when he lined up 62 of the 106 dogs at Tuesday’s Invercargill meeting.
But 13 of the 14 races? In a remarkable feat, McInerney trained 13 winners on the card at Ascot Park and couldn’t make it a clean sweep because he had no runners in race two.
Starting with Homebush Maycee, which romped home by four lengths in race one at a price of $5.20, the winners just kept flowing for Darfield-based McInerney who won six successive New Zealand training premierships from 2011 to 2016.
He had seven of the eight runners in race three and won with the $2.40 favourite Cosmic Ruben. In the 14th and final event, McInerney had five of the six runners and his $3 favourite Black Dan did the job.
His longest priced winner was Cosmic Ryder which paid $7.30 in race 12 as McInerney trained the first six runners over the line in the seven-dog field.
McInerney told Stuff last year he’d made the eight-and-a-half hour drive from Darfield to Invercargill with his staff and dogs for the past 20 years, travelling on the Monday before the Tuesday race meeting.
‘‘We stop at the same places [on the way] and feed at the same times ... the dogs know the routine,’’ he said.
He worked as a plumber in Invercargill and trained greyhounds as a sideline before moving to Canterbury nearly 30 years ago.
McInerney trains about 100 dogs at Darfield and another 50 at his Palmerston North kennel, operated by son Steven.
On the New Zealand trainers’ premiership for the 2017-18 season, McInerney is second on 525 winners, behind Palmerston North-based Lisa Cole on 701.