By Gerard Guthrie
The heavily-supported Lala Kiwi – one of Andrea Dailly’s four finalists – upstaged star kennelmate Qwara Bale to complete an impressive clean-sweep of the Group 3 Cranbourne Classic (520m) series on Saturday night.
‘Team Dailly’ supplied half the field for the $25,000 to-the-winner Classic, with dual Group-1 winner and fastest qualifier Qwara Bale sent out the $2.20 favourite from box one.
Lala Kiwi had upset brilliant speedster Koblenz in her 30.04 heat victory at her Cranbourne debut a week earlier, but was as much as $16 in early markets before the scratching of recent Group-3 Warragul St. Leger winner Aston Fastnet.
Some smart late money saw her odds trim significantly to start the $4.10 second elect.
The other two Dailly contenders were Shima Classic from box eight, and Lala Ivory from box two – an Aussie Infrared/Lala Shim litter sister to Lala Kiwi – who was sent out a despised outsider.
David Geall’s Koblenz, the winner of 17 from 26, started from box seven and loomed as a potential ‘fly in the ointment’ for the Dailly quartet being well found in the market.
Lala Kiwi was best to begin from box four, before being headed by Shima Classic rounding the first corner, with Koblenz in third, while Qwara Bale was a distant fourth heading into the back straight.
Lala Kiwi levelled up to Shima Classic turning for home and powered clear to score a commanding five-length victory in a best-of-the-night 29.85 seconds. Koblenz was third with Qwara Bale winding up in fifth place.
Lala Kiwi has now won 11 of her 25 starts, with the winner’s purse taking her career earnings past $85,000.
“Once Lala Kiwi was sitting on Shima Classic I thought she would win the race because she’s stronger than Shima Classic,” said co-trainer Tom Dailly.
“Lala Kiwi can run when she gets a clear run and when she was second on her own I thought she had a great chance.
“Koblenz is a very good dog and if he was in front of Lala Kiwi she’d be in trouble, but when she was in front of him, I didn’t think he could run her down. It was the same story in the heat when she was able to hold Koblenz out.
“Lala Kiwi can be hit-or-miss out of the boxes but she can fly out and she’s come out really well in both runs at Cranbourne.
“She’s only had 20-odd starts, which I know is a few runs, but sometimes it takes them a few runs to put it altogether and I think her best is ahead of her.
“Qwara Bale came out a bit ordinary tonight, which she can do at times, so we were lucky we had a couple of others in the race.”
While the Dailly kennel are certainly no strangers to Group glory, Lala Kiwi’s victory had extra meaning as she was bred and raced by Dailly Greyhound Farms, who purchased her mother Lala Shim as a pup from successful breeders David Gleeson and Bob Cummings.
The Dailly’s have combined with Gleeson and Cummings and their potent ‘Shima’ line for many feature successes, most notably with the recently-retired superstar Shima Shine.
Shima Shine and Lala Kiwi are closely related through their mothers, being litter sisters by 2011 Melbourne Cup hero Dyna Tron out of Group-winning stayer Shimaguni.
David Geall missed out with Koblenz in the Classic, but he received some consolation by landing the GRV Vic Bred Series final (520m) with $1.20 favourite Fernando Mick.
Fernando Mick, runner-up to Qwara Bale in last month’s G1 Maturity Classic, defeated the strong-closing Rufiano ($10) by a length in 29.94, his tenth win from 36 starts.
