A chance meeting on a fishing trip is the unlikely catalyst behind Paul Osborn’s fairytale bid for Group 1 glory with promising bitch Tizza Nitro in Thursday night’s heats of the Sapphire Crown at Sandown Park.
Osborn, 63, will have his first ever starter in a Group 1 series when Tizza Nitro, impressive winner of her last three starts at Sandown, tackles the third heat of the bitches-only Sapphire Crown.
“Tizza Nitro’s owner Rodney Dunn is a fairly keen fisherman and I met him when we were out on a charter boat one day,” said Osborn, who’s based at Bungador, near Colac.
“I’d just lost a handy dog called Cordite Reward, which used to go pretty good but kept taking fits, and Rodney asked me if I wanted to have a go with a bitch of his that had broken in city class. That’s how I got Tizza Nitro.”
A March ’13 daughter of Nitro Burst and Tizzatango, Tizza Nitro has earned her shot at the $100,000 to-the-winner Sapphire Crown with a slick Sandown hat-trick – clocking 29.62sec, 29.64sec and 29.90sec – and Osborn is optimistic she’ll measure up in by far the biggest test of her 11-start career.
“She’s the first runner I’ve ever had in a Group 1 series so it would be nice just to qualify for the final,” Osborn said.
“I suppose we’ve got an 8/1 chance of qualifying and if she managed to win the final I’d probably be able to buy my own boat!
“I think box two is a pretty handy draw for her and if she can jump out good I think she’ll be right in the race. She can come from behind – her run home times are very good – and she’s run 29.62sec at Sandown. That’s not walking!
“It’s exciting just to have a runner in a race like this because it’s pretty hard to get a good dog when you only train a few.
“I’ve been tangled up in greyhound racing since 1976 and I’ve been training my own dogs since about 1994. I’ve only got three in work at the moment, including Tizza Nitro’s litter brother Tizza Rebel. He goes alright too but he’s had a few injury problems so he’s a bit behind her.
“I also borrowed Tizza Nitro’s mother, Tizzatango, and bred a litter of pups by Cosmic Rumble. She had seven pups and they’re about 11 months old now.”
One of the main threats to Tizza Nitro is Group 1 winner Cosmic Wise, trained by Jeff Britton who prepared the quinella in last year’s Sapphire Crown Final with litter sisters Oakvale Destiny and Oakvale Flyer.
In addition to four heats of the Sapphire Crown, Thursday night’s star-studded Sandown meeting will also feature four heats of the Group 1 Harrison-Dawson for the males, with Andrea Dailly’s budding superstar Fernando Bale (heat 4, box 3) undoubtedly the headline act.
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Pictured top: Tizza Nitro and Paul Osborn. Pic Paul Munt.
