History beckons for remarkable sprinter Fernando Bale in Friday night’s Group 1 Classic Triple M Adelaide Cup.

If Andrea Dailly’s freakish front-runner can win the Adelaide Cup – and the TAB’s Fixed Odds price of $1.30 suggests there’s a very good chance he will – he’ll become the first greyhound worldwide to earn a million dollars in prizemoney.

In winning 30 of his 37 starts, highlighted by six Group 1 successes, Fernando Bale has accumulated $931,110 in earnings with the $75,000 Adelaide Cup purse to take his incredible tally past the magical million mark.

“It’s a lot of money!” co-trainer George Dailly laughed.

“I was only thinking recently about (2011 Melbourne Cup winner) Dyna Tron’s litter (Collision – Gold Rush Bale), which we trained. That was the first litter to win a million dollars in prizemoney and it wasn’t that long ago – only three or four years – and everyone thought how good that was for a litter. But now we’re talking about one single greyhound winning a million dollars. It’s amazing.

“I always equate it that it costs about ten times as much to have a horse so it would be similar to a horse winning $10 million in prizemoney.”

Fernando Bale has earned his ever-expanding cache in a relatively short period of time, with his first victory at Group level coming in the National Derby on February 7, just eight months ago.

The March ’13 son of US sire Kelsos Fusileer produced the standout performance in last Thursday’s Adelaide Cup heats, overcoming an early stumble at his Angle Park debut to lead throughout in a low-flying 29.36sec.

Team Dailly also qualified a second finalist with Dyna Double One to meet his all-conquering kennelmate for the fourth time in a Group 1 decider – having run second in both the Maturity and Peter Mosman Classics and fifth in the Golden Easter Egg – after winning his heat in 29.64sec.

“Fernando Bale went right down on his nose at the start but he still went 4.34 to the first mark and led easily,” Dailly said.

“Then he ran 16.59 up the back, which is absolutely airborne.
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Watch: Fernando Bale (3) wins his heat of the Triple M Adelaide Cup heat last week.

“He’s drawn box six but boxes don’t really matter with him, as long as he gets out like he normally does.

“But he’ll have to be on his game because he does have two very good dogs on his outside in Kayda Shae (7) and Shared Equity (8), which went good to the first mark last week (4.33). So if he misses the kick he could be in a bit of trouble.”

With Fernando Bale’s owner/breeder Paul Wheeler stating no decision will be made on the superstar’s future until after the Melbourne Cup, it’s likely he could add substantially to his earnings in the world’s richest race, which is worth $420,000 to-the-winner, and before that the $150,000 to-the-winner Topgun.

And having already won both the Bendigo and Traralgon Cups Fernando Bale is also in line for a $50,000 bonus for snaring three country cups in a calendar year should he be successful at either Geelong or Ballarat.
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Remaining Adelaide Cup Replays
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Watch: Dyna Double One (8) wins in 29.64sec
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Watch: Secret Spell (7) wins in 29.74sec
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Watch: Shared Equity (2) wins in 29.61sec
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Watch: Lachlan Brown (1) wins in 29.83sec.