Greyhounds: Hatrick's fastest heading to Addington and Australia

It sure is an interesting week of greyhound racing ahead at the Hatrick Raceway with qualifying for two big ticket events being the focus.

Last July, Whanganui hosted the $60,000 Amazing Chase finals and this year's edition will be hosted by the Christchurch GRC at the Addington Raceway on July 28.

There will be at least two greyhounds from Hatrick who will qualify for the exciting two dog, four race, $60,000 final over 520m.

This is the set of 520m match races where the greyhounds not only race in pairs, but they also race against the clock.

Qualifying from Hatrick is via recording the quickest 520m times up until next Friday evening.

At the moment it is the Matt Roberts-prepared She's For Us who heads the Hatrick Amazing Chase leaderboard with her 30.49s New Zealand debut 520m dash last Friday.

She receives the opportunity of improving her time tomorrow evening in Race 3, the C3/4 520m event.

Angela Turnwald has seen her pair of chasers Waitohi (30.73s) and Triple What (30.83s) record the next two quickest times to date.

Others who will be setting Amazing Chase qualifying times tomorrow evening include Nature's Gent, the recent Turnwald-prepared Addington Group 2 520m winner, along with another kennelmate Hot Platter.

Both will contest's tomorrow evening's feature NZ Nationals Middle Distance 520m heat (Race 10).

And that brings us to next set of feature race qualifying, as the NZ Nationals Series heats are the start of a potential pathway to contest the Australian Nationals final, which will be decided in Perth on August 24.

The first four greyhounds to finish in tomorrow evening's heat will be joined by four northern greyhounds to contest the NZ Nationals Middle Distance (520m) semifinal here next Friday.

Also next Friday, the stayers will start their qualifying path for the NZ Nationals Distance series when they match their paws over 755m.

The first four greyhounds to finish over both distances next week will then head south to the Addington Raceway, where the NZ Nationals final will be decided over 520m and 732m for a $50,000 stake on August 8.

The winner of those races will then represent New Zealand in the Australian finals in Perth, where both finals will carry A$75,000 to the winner stake.

Tomorrow evening's Hatrick Nationals heat is likely to turn into a paw wrestle between Nature's Gent and the Lisa Cole-trained pair of Bigtime Rod, who stylishly won last Friday's $12,000 NZRS Advanced 520m final, and the dual Group 1 winning chaser Trojan Hoarse.