Red Cliffs owner Keith Bowen had only come to know too well the solace of finishing behind champion greyhound Aston Dee Bee.
As the most prolific greyhound in Australia in recent times, Aston Dee Bee had collected the Melbourne Cup, Ballarat Cup and Warragul Cup over the past few months and looked set to add to his collection coming out of box eight at the Horsham Cup on Saturday night.
But while experts fell over themselves to declare Aston Dee Bee a near certainty, the $1.80 favourite was outgunned as Jimmy Newob ($4.90) finally swept in to take the glory after a series of runs that saw him finish near enough but not close enough.
“It’s a huge relief to finally win a group race with him, and to finally turn the tables on Aston Dee Bee,” Bowen, a part owner of Jimmy Newob, said after the slick win in 27.07sec.
“He ran sixth to Aston Dee Bee in the Ballarat Cup and ran second to him in the Warragul Cup.”
And the rivalry extends even further than that, with Jimmy Newob threatening to dominate several times on the big stage in recent months, only to fall just short of taking the win.
But Horsham was his time to shine.
“He also ran second to Black Mumbo in the Group 1 Harrison-Dawson and just a couple of weeks ago he ran second in the (Group 2) Bulli Gold Cup,” Bowen said. “So he has been knocking on the door for a while now.”
Bowen explained how he and brother John came to own Jimmy Newob, who was bred in NSW by Joseph Baldacchino.
“Mum died three years ago and left us a little bit of money, but it wasn’t enough to buy the leg of a horse.”
“So we decided to buy a greyhound pup and I noticed a young litter by Cosmic Rumble, who was the number two sire at the time, out of Nosey Rozy, who won nine from 15. So we bought the pup from Joseph and he turned out to be Jimmy Newob,” Bowen said.
Jimmy Newob is a relatively recent addition to Kelvyn Greenough’s kennel, having been trained for most of his career by Barry Fullerton.
He won the Horsham Cup by four lengths over Aston Dee Bee, with reserve Gregorovitch third.
The win took Jimmy Newob’s record to 20 wins from 44 starts, with the $47,000 first prize taking his career earnings up to $207,344.
