Latent Energy, bought for a paltry $400 by 28-year-old Jonathan Gatt earlier this year, notched her ninth win in 18 starts for her new owner-trainer when she led throughout at Richmond on Sunday.
Latent Energy zipped over the 330m trip in a slick 18.74, fastest time of the meeting, continuing her remarkable run of success for Gatt, who was studying high performance sport in Brisbane until returning to NSW to visit his parents in suburban Ryde.
"When I am able to go back to Brisbane at the beginning of next year I plan to buy a property and go into greyhound training in a serious way, hopefully setting up a large kennel,'' Gatt said.
"My father Dominic, who still helps out with Latent Energy, had some success training his own greyhounds and won at Wentworth Park with Princess Pengala in April, 2006.
"I studied animal veterinary bio-chemistry at university here and spent nine years working at Wentworth Park as a veterinary assistant.
"When I bought Latent Energy I worked on a few things with her both physically and mentally and got her going well.
"I'm a great believer in making sure a greyhound's blood flow is good because that will reduce the chances of injuries.
"They are all different, they are individuals and what suits one greyhound might not suit another so I believe it is important to try and find the key to each dog.''
Blabba Mouth is set to return to the track - at the ripe old age of six years and four months - in heats of the Masters Meteor at Wentworth Park on October 10.
Blabba Mouth came from third early to down Bad Ronnie and Bogan Doonie in last year's $100,000 to the winner Meteor final and after being "retired'' by owner-trainer Cheryl Murray is back in work.
"The old dog is going as good as, if not better than ever,'' Murray's husband Michael said.
"When Cheryl was slipping him post-to-post last year at Wenty he was running around 24.70 but in his past two hit-outs he has clocked 24.23 and then 24.58.
"That latter time was after the track had been turned so Cheryl put him out of the 520m boxes on September 22 and he clocked 29.98, just .09sec slower than he took to win the Masters Meteor in 2019.''
