By MICHAEL FLOYD
BANJO Boy burst back onto the feature scene Thursday evening when he brilliantly took out a TAB Melbourne Cup Prelude at Sandown Park.
One of the fastest greyhounds ever to grace the View Road circuit, Banjo Boy took full advantage of box one and powered to a lead he wouldn’t relinquish.
“I thought he’d run around 29.30 so it was in the window of about what I expected,” said trainer Ken Virtue.
“He hasn’t had many trials (since resuming from a three month injury lay off), I’ve used the races to get him to 500m so I reckon at his next run he should be tops.”
While delighted with Banjo Boy’s first win since May, Virtue was conscious of what lay ahead to get his charge into the world’s richest greyhound race.
“It’s great to tick the Prelude box and get him qualified for the Cup heats, but we’ve still got a month to go (before the heats).
“The Preludes are great, but I’m not sure if I’ll run him in another one… but then, I’ve got to keep him racing, so it’s a problem I’ll deal with when I sit down and have a good think about the options.”
New Zealand bred greyhound Above All also booked his berth in the TAB Melbourne Cup heats with an impressive win in 29.44.
Robert Britton’s exciting youngster claimed the biggest win of his burgeoning eight-race career, and will aim to become the first Kiwi greyhound since 1974 to win the world’s richest greyhound race.
Superfonic recorded the biggest upset of the night when claiming his Prelude in 29.40.
Lining up in a high quality field that included Australia’s highest stake earning greyhound Xylia Allen, Superfonic was sent to the boxes a $29 chance but proved too good to hold out highly rated Sydney chaser Shoulders by a length.
In the night’s final Prelude, Crawf’s Bread led all of the way from box eight to win in 29.64.
Unfortunate to miss a berth in the TAB Melbourne Cup heat last year, Crawf’s Bread has now won 26 of his 89 career starts and claimed over $116,000 in prize money, a remarkable feat considering he has never won above free-for-all level.
All four of the Prelude winners automatically qualify for the heats of the TAB Melbourne Cup on Thursday 13 November, with the $600,000 final to be run on Friday 21 November.
