The Lisa Cole training juggernaut cruised to yet another national trainers' record when Big
Time Roxy strongly prevailed during her Tuesday Manawatū 457m assignment.
It was the Cole kennels' 862nd training win for the current season, which eclipsed last season's record 861 winners.
She commenced Thursday's Cambridge meeting with her tally standing at 868 winners, and another training milestone looms for her at this evening's Hatrick meeting.
Two seasons ago she set a national stake earning record for a term with $2,089,530. Greyhounds mentored by her commenced yesterday's meeting having won $2,072,252 in
stakes.
Depending on yesterday's Cambridge results, where Cole had a strong team entered, that
season stakes record is likely to be claimed this evening.
It has been a remarkable achievement from the family-oriented team: Cole and husband
Brendon, daughters Ella and Georgia, supported by dedicated staff.
It is remarkable considering five weeks of the season was lost during the Covid-19 racing
shutdown. The lockdown obviously meant lost stake earning opportunities, especially given the suspension of all group and feature races since March.
"We were flying when we stopped racing. During the shutdown we marked time with our
dogs, which put back the younger ones we were bringing up when we restarted racing.
The thousand was a goal we had set for ourselves – we'll have to target that next season,"
Brendon Cole said.
The Cole training machine is likely to relentlessly march on during this evening's meeting.
The club has moved their open class races back to the later part in the programme this evening after having opened recent meetings with the top-ranked events.
The 305m open class sprinters opens up the late Quaddie (race 9), where the entire field
is provided by Cole.
The draw suggests the inside-drawn trio of Big Time Fairy, Sir Duggie and the 305m winner from the last two Friday's Big Time Jonie are likely to feature predominantly, although Big Time Angel also holds claims from her wider draw after having recently lowered the Manawatū 410m track record.
The gun 520m chasers are next up and Big Time Maple, Big Time Kobe and Big Time
Baby bring solid-looking form to the event.
Bigtime Brody is a much better chaser than his current form line indicates, while the
claim held by the trap-one drawn Big Time Izzy cannot be lightly dismissed.