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  • Friday, 17 Apr, 2020,
  • by Gerard Guthrie

Ice Cool Kaedyn chasing seven straight

At four years of age most greyhounds are enjoying retirement.

However veteran wonder Ice Cool Kaedyn is an exception to the rule and will be chasing an incredible seventh straight win when he tackles superstar Black Opium at The Meadows on Saturday night.

“Isn’t he amazing,” said proud trainer Kate Gorman.

And the successful young Tanjil South trainer is spot on, with Ice Cool Kaedyn defying age and several career-threatening injuries to strike the best form of his career as he prepares to hit the track for the 82nd time.

“After the Traralgon Cup Final (January, 2018) he injured a stopper tendon and had six months off,” Gorman explained.

“He came back and did an Achilles tendon in the Australian Cup heats (February, 2019) and was out for another eight months.

“Then at the end of last year he cut his foot badly at Ballarat and had two months off. I was tossing up retiring him and spoke to his owners about it but he came back and ran a couple of placings and after that he’s gone bang!

“I definitely didn’t expect him to rack up six in a row but he just wants to race.

“He absolutely loves it and he knows when he wins too. He really struts around the catching pen!”

WATCH: Ice Cool Kaedyn win at Sale from box two last start.

Four of Ice Cool Kaedyn’s recent victories have come at Sale, with Gorman rating his most recent success, last Sunday, as one of the finest of his long career that kicked off at the same venue way back in June, 2017.

“The time wasn’t there but it showed how tough he is. He just fought it out to the end,” said Gorman, who has done a wonderful job managing her ageless campaigner.

“When he won over 520m at Sale a few starts ago his time blew me away. It was his first 500 in ages – about a year – and he ran 29.29s.

“The times he’s running are better than when he was two and a half and he’s getting close to four and a half.”

Despite his picket-fence form-line, Ice Cool Kaedyn (box 4) is a $10 outsider in TAB’s market on Saturday’s 525m Free For All (race 8 to jump at 8.53pm), with Jason Thompson’s brilliant bitch Black Opium (box 3) stifling betting at $1.35.

“I’m not as confident about Saturday night,” Gorman conceded.

“He’s meeting the sort of field you would expect in a Saturday night free for all but he deserves a crack at it.

“His good traits are that he’s reliable early and he doesn’t give up. I’ve got quicker dogs but I’d love to have a kennel-full of dogs that chase like he does.

“He’ll tell us when it’s time to retire but I don’t think we could stop him if we wanted to at the moment!”

Gerard GuthrieGerard Guthrie

Gerard Guthrie

One of Australia’s leading greyhound racing journalists since 2000 with the Greyhound Recorder and now with Greyhound Racing Victoria. Part-owner 2013 Group 1 Paws Of Thunder winner Sheikha. (The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of GRV)

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