Exciting sprinting prospect, Isle Of Rose, will make her eagerly awaited return to Wentworth Park on Saturday night when she contests a stacked heat of the $75,000-to-the-winner Group 1 Ladbrokes Paws Of Thunder series.
The Group 2 Laurels Classic Final winner, now back in the care of owner and trainer Troy Macdonald, reappearing in Sydney just over a month after a successful stint in the Melbourne kennels of Kel and Jackie Greenough.
“She won three in a row at Wentworth Park back in October and just before she won that third one, I started to look around for better races I suppose,” Macdonald said.
Isle Of Rose is already an 11-time winner and has earned just shy of $100,000 in prizemoney
“I saw the Laurels was coming up in Victoria and I think it’s the hardest place to win. If you can win a group race in Melbourne, especially with a bitch, it tends to carry a bit more esteem.”
“But the heats weren’t until December 7. So I rang Kel Greenough as he used to train a few dogs for my mother in law, Lorraine Atchison and I asked him to have a look at what Isle Of Rose had done and tell me if he thought she should have a crack at the Laurels.”
“A few days later she beat Nangar Lucy in a bitches final at Wenty Park and Kel rang me back and said “that was a sensational win, send her down and we’ll have a crack”.”
Macdonald loathe to attempt a snatch and run mission south of the border, instead choosing to base the classy youngster in Victoria in the lead-up to the $55,000-to-the-winner feature.
“I didn’t want to send her down two weeks before the race because I didn’t think that was fair to Kel or the bitch, so I sent her down at the start of November and they had six weeks to school her up and prepare her,” Macdonald added.
The litter sister to 2023 Group 1 Vic Peters Classic runner-up, Tarawi Tiger, hardly setting the world on fire in her first look at the Sandown circuit – a seventh-placed effort of 30.38.
But her next start (29.68) was different gravy, and it paved the way for her dominant 3.11 length victory in one of Victoria’s most prestigious age classics just a few weeks later.
“The plan was always to give her a few starts at Sandown so when she went into the heats, she was almost like a local,” Macdonald said.
“Kel and Jackie [Greenough] were outstanding with me the whole time and they wanted to keep things pretty similar with her. They were communicating and letting me know everything that was going on and her performance in the final was just brilliant.”
The Group 2 success followed by a well-earned spell over the Christmas period, with Isle Of Rose originally set to miss the summer features in NSW.
That was until she set the trial track alight in a recent return to the track.
“I gave her a trial at Gosford last Friday over 388m and she just flew,” Macdonald said.
“When she pulled up good from it, I sort of just floated for the week thinking about what to do and she seemed to be bouncing around so I looked at the nominations and they’d only had 28 when I decided to put her in,” Macdonald said.
“I thought “it’s not like she’s lost all her fitness and it’s only been a month since she won the Laurels in Melbourne” so if she could draw an easier heat, she might be able to get through to the final.”
But as is often the case in the greyhound world, the box draw gods were not favourable to the daughter of Barcia Bale.
“I think she’s drawn the hardest heat and it’s almost worthy of a final. Nearly every dog in the race is a free for all dog and she’s very inexperienced compared to them,” Macdonald said.
“But I’m confident she’ll be competitive and give a good account of herself. The other side of the coin is I leave a good dog in the kennel and you never know what might happen with greyhounds.”
“If you’ve got a top liner, you want to test them against the best and this field is the hottest she will have faced. All I’ll add is, it’s going to be a very interesting run to that first turn.”
Isle Of Rose is currently a $3.20 favourite with Ladbrokes ahead of Saturday night's 10-race card.
