What do you call a dog when you’re told all of your preferred options were not available?
That was the dilemma for Paul Roach when it came time to find a race name for his son of Barcia Bale known in the kennels simply as ‘Ned’. A fan of Western movies, Roach had named a number of his greyhounds after Clint Eastwood and John Wayne movies. However it seems he wasn’t the only one that was a fan of the genre.
“I put in so many names and the lady just came back and said that those names are not available,” Roach said.
“So that’s how it happened, we couldn’t get any of the names we wanted so we named him Not Available. It’s a little quirky, in one of his early starts the lady scanned his microchip and it came up as ‘Not Available’ so she went and asked the vet what was wrong with the scanner. It got people talking about him.”
The story of the greyhound Not Available – who was born on April Fool’s Day – is one of the most interesting of Thursday night’s group 1 Harrison-Dawson final. Roach has spent almost half a century in greyhound racing as an owner, breeder, rearer, and trainer, and owns a spelling and rearing facility on 70 acres in Lidsdale west of Sydney. He used to work for prominent breeder Kevin Gordon, and in January 2017, Roach was offered the greyhound as a giveaway. As fortune would have it, the timing was perfect.
“I don’t really know the full story, but Kevin has a lot of dogs and often sells them cheap or gives them away. He has a cut off time for his pups and some dogs are little shy or a little sore or just don’t come on until they’re a little older.
“We have a lot of dogs come through here and he was the first one I’d ever taken – I could’ve taken 50 in the past – but I thought that the dog was worth seven or eight grand on his breeding and he was being offered to us for nothing. A mate of mine Tony Frazer comes along and gives me a hand of a morning and afternoon, we said we might as well get that dog and race him between us.”
After a slow start for his new owner, it wasn’t long before Not Available showed above average ability.
“We put him in the ring and he didn’t go too hot the first time, but we took him back and he made up for it. He only had the two starts there and the second time he was the fastest. We rushed him a bit at his first start, a big maiden at Richmond, but he was trialling near record times after that so we sent him down to Robbie (Britton).
“In his first few races down there he was beaten by dogs like Lightning Frank, Bewildering and Up Hill Jill, so while he was getting beaten he was still running good races.”
Not Available has gone on to carve out an solid career against some of the best chasers in the country. A winner of 17 of 40 career starts and over $87,000 in prize money, he has excelled at Sandown Park where he has registered eight wins from 18 attempts. He was the first reserve in the 2017 TAB Melbourne Cup, beaten in his heat by the eventual winner Aston Dee Bee, and was also the first reserve in the Speed Star last September, winning a consolation. He would again win a consolation event in the Speed Star earlier in May – setting the fastest time of the night along the way – and was also the fastest qualifier for the Harrison-Dawson final, where he is rated a $3.70 chance by tab.com.au to claim the $100,000 winner’s purse.
“Kevin often rings to congratulate us, he likes to see him win. He’s done tremendous – we had the luck of him having been given to us, and we sure have had luck giving him to Robbie, he’s got him going good.”
Thursday night is shaping as a memorable night for trainer Robert Britton. As well as Not Available in the Harrison-Dawson, Britton prepares a quartet of finalists in the $250,000 RSN Sandown Cup, the world’s richest race for stayers.
Click here for all of the latest news on RSN Sandown Cup night.
Paw note: Not Available is not the first greyhound Roach had trouble naming. A few years ago, he submitted a number of names only to be told none of them were available, thus the greyhound was named ‘None Of Them.’
Not Available sets the night’s time standard when brilliantly winning his heat of the group 1 Harrison-Dawson
It’s race time, let’s get excited! pic.twitter.com/xXsfXbrTm5
— Sandown Greyhounds (@sandowndogs) May 17, 2018
Not Available loves to dance as much as he loves to race!
