SHAWN NOACK

GAWLER Greyhound Racing Club held its first ‘G-Six’ race meeting on Friday, with a 12-race card.

The G-Six concept is being trialled by Greyhound Racing SA at Angle Park, Gawler and Mount Gambier for a three-month period.

The strategy is to continue improving the safety of a race for the greyhounds by limiting the traditional eight-box field to six, in turn removing interference that can cause injury whilst increasing the number of races per meeting up to the maximum number of 12.

This will ensure that trainers and owners are given every opportunity to race their greyhounds and potentially collect prize money.

From the punters’ perspective, they will have more races to be able to invest in.

Ben Rawlings certainly enjoyed the new race format at Gawler, with three of the four greyhounds he had running finishing in first place.

The first of his winners was in race one, over the 400m trip.

Dictation (one) jumped well, with No Not Yet, trained by Ray Barkla, just taking the lead.

Emerley Hummer, trained by Judi Hurley, was hot on their tails and challenged Dictation all the way through to the finish line.

Dictation finished in a time of 23.15 seconds.

Ben’s second winner came in race two, as Miss Takiri jumped well and led for the entire race.

Race seven was the third of Ben’s victories, with Alicante Bouchet taking the line honours in the best time of the day over 400m of 22.62 seconds.

Crazy Again, trained by Des Hockley, jumped to the front, but was soon caught by Alicante Bouchet which went on to win by almost five lengths.

Gawler racing will be on again this coming Friday and Tuesday, so check the race guide for start times and the club’s Facebook page for all information.