Third Success In His Grandfather's Race For Charlie
By Jeff Collerson
At Casino on Thursday Charlie Northfield not only took out the race named in honour of his grandfather, Charlie "Pop'' Northfield, for the third time but added the quinella for good measure.
Even more remarkable was that Charlie landed the $8000 first prizemoney with a $34 rank outsider, Kingsbrae Kenzie, while snaring second reward of $2000 with a $12 roughie, KINGSBRAE KOTA.
"I first won my grandfather's race in 2002 with Amber Phoenix and 10 years later won it with Kingsbrae Molly, who defeated her litter brother Paw Licking in the final,'' Northfield said.
"I bred Kingsbrae Molly and Paw Licking, who went on to win 32 of his 54 races and over $326,000 prizemoney for owner Allan Lang, mostly while trained in Melbourne by Kel Greenough.
"On the other hand KINGSBRAE KOTA is a mad railer and she had box six, so they were drawn upside down.
"Only recently I was on the verge of giving Kingsbrae Kenzie away.
"She is a constant tail-wagger and because she continually made the tip of her tail bleed profusely, I had the end snipped off.
"Since that little operation was done Kingsbrae Kenzie is going slightly better.
"When I had the tail tip removed, a local trainer teased me that I must be hoping to turn her into another PRETTY SHORT.
"That was the name of my father Bill's champion greyhound who won 50 races and set 14 track records in the mid-1980s.
"He was called PRETTY SHORT because as an unnamed youngster he was a frequent tail wagger who had the have the tip taken off.''
While PRETTY SHORT is the most famous dog raced by the Northfield clan, Charlie's grand-dad "Pop'' Northfield trained Bonalls Return to win the 1946 Casino Cup while Stratheden Rock, another of his dogs, became a local hero by defeating the legendary Sydney champion Zoom Top at Grafton in 1969.
Rookie trainer Stephen Archer enjoyed the rare distinction of winning a TAB race with his first greyhound when Trelly Belly led throughout over 330m at Richmond on Friday.
Having his third start for the computer programmer from Dural, Trelly Belly was bought by Archer and his school teacher wife Christine for $2800 after winning just one race at Muswellbrook, from a dozen starts.
"We are having great fun with Trelly Belly because our 12-year-old son Lucas takes on many of the training duties so is heavily involved,'' Archer said.
"Our friend Michael Phillips has owned many good greyhounds, including Miss Splendamiro, and when we decided to buy a dog we reached out to him.
"When I explained I would like us to train Trelly Belly, Michael suggested I learn the ropes by spending time with famous trainer Hank Vanderburg.
"Hank was happy for me to take a lot of his greyhound knowledge on board and training Trelly Belly, rather than just being the owners and handing him over to a trainer, has made the whole experience especially enjoyable.''
