By MICHAEL FLOYD
BROOKE Ennis’s reputation as one of the state’s best young trainers continues to grow following a winning treble at Sandown Park on Thursday evening.
Ennis, who enjoyed a breakout 2014 that saw her train 116 winners on Victorian tracks at a stunning strike rate of 37 per cent, opened the night’s meeting on a positive note when Repayments scored for the fourth time in five starts in 29.45.
The exciting Deadly Vane won at his Sandown Park debut, scoring the opening leg of the quaddie in a slick best-of-night time of 29.29 seconds. Ennis completed her treble when Margins closed out the meeting with an impressive last-to-first run in 29.30.
“The team is going well,” said Brooke’s husband, Jamie.
“They’re an exciting group, they just need a bit of luck early and they’re all capable of running serious times.”
While the Group 2 Launceston Cup had been pencilled in as the team’s short term target, Deadly Vane’s impressive performance has Ennis considering a bigger stage for the speedster.
“He hasn’t raced in town for almost 11 months so I wanted to see how he went over 500m.
“He put a time on the board and was strong at the end, so I might set him for a race like the Perth Cup.”
More immediately are Sandown’s twin features this Thursday night, the Australian Sprint (515m) and Maidment Memorial (595m), both carrying a $15,000 winner’s purse.
In other greyhound racing news, Awesome Project, Dyna Villa, My Bro Fabio, Oakvale Destiny and Sweet It Is have been named finalists for the 2014 Sandown Greyhound of the Year.
The quintet combined for 33 wins and $1.2m in prize money at Sandown Park alone in 2014. The winner will be announced during the club’s ‘$2 Day Meeting’ this Thursday night.
