Two-time Speed Star champion Bewildering has been ruled out of a tilt at an historic three-peat as he continues to recover from injury.
The Seona Thompson trained sprinter has been off the racing scene since running 5th in a heat of the Horsham Cup on 2 March, and while he is recovering well, won’t be in a position to defend his Speed Star title on 10 May.
“He’s had bit of a hock injury which has pretty much healed up now and hopefully we’ll be able to put him up the straight this week, but he is probably still around four weeks away from making it back to the track so it’s just going to come around too soon for him,” said Thompson.
The $145,000 group 1 Harrison-Dawson follows the Speed Star and Thompson said he was a chance to contest the series in which he finished 5th in 2017. However she was clear she would be taking it one step at a time as he returns to fitness.
“He’s had a few troubles before and the problem is going around a turn, so we’ll give him a couple runs up the straight to get his fitness back up to get him over the 500m. He’s jumping out of his skin and he wants to go racing so we’ll get him back as soon as we can without rushing him.
“He’s a bit too special and he has a stud career ahead of him so just baby steps – we’ll see how he comes through each run.”
While Melbourne Cup hero Aston Dee Bee currently sits second on the Bill Collins Speed Star leader board, the kennel’s main hope in the series will be Poke The Bear who recorded a stunning victory in 29.46 at The Meadows last night – just 0.08 seconds outside of Allen Deed’s track record. Poke The Bear currently sits sixth in the standing with a 29.277 qualifying time.
“There’s a couple on the list (for the Speed Star), obviously Poke The Bear is pretty high up on the list now so he’ll be heading that way. Extreme Magic is too, other than that, we’ll see just see, we haven’t got a big team at the moment.
“Aston Dee Bee is heading to a Warrnambool Cup heat on Wednesday. We’ll see how he comes through and go from there.”
The Bill Collins Speed Star will be run on Thursday 10 May and will see 40 greyhounds contest 20 match races with just under $200,000 in prize money up for grabs. Matches will be run over all three racing distances. Click here for current standings and details.
Bewildering’s stunning 29.030 run to win the Speed Star in September 2017
