The father and son training partnership of Robert and Dylan Bate broke through for their first victory at Sandown Park yesterday when Rellim Diesel powered to an exciting victory.
Lining up his 50th career start, Rellim Diesel jumped well from the red box to settle in second place before switching wide at the home turn and storming to a 3½ length victory.
Trained by Robert and handled by his son Dylan (pictured above after Rellim Diesel’s recent win at Geelong), it was the greyhound’s 10th career victory but first at the View Road venue. With dad fulfilling racing commitments at Healesville, it was left to Dylan to break their Sandown Park maiden.
“We’d had six or seven starters (at Sandown Park), not too many, so it was good to break through,” said Dylan, who turned 22 last Saturday.
The Bates have been training in partnership for just under two years however their involvement in the sport goes back further having owned greyhounds for a couple of years prior. They took the plunge and got involved in training at the encouragement of Mark Giddings, a friend of Dylan’s who had success with Lioness Lulu through 2016.
“We had dogs for a few years beforehand and we just loved the animals. Mark had just won a big race and he talked us into it. It started from there – we started with one dog, then went to two dogs, and we went up to five maybe three or four months ago.
“It’s great to do the dogs with dad, and Michelle Mallia-Magri has really helped me a lot along the way too.”
Rellim Diesel, whose five previous wins were at tier 3 level, recorded an impressive 29.90 in winning on Sunday, and Bate is hoping he can take the next step up and secure a win in city company.
“We’ll try and put him in a city race and see what he can do then work it out from there. He stepped up to 500m yesterday and he showed he could do it. He ran home pretty strong so we’ll try and build him up to 600m now.”
Rellim Diesel scores the first Sandown Park winner for father and son training partnership Robert and Dylan Bate
