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  • Friday, 03 Sep, 2021,
  • by Peter Quilty

Brown’s ‘shout out loud’ for Grassroots

Axedale’s Brian Brown, 70, epitomises the ‘grassroots’ greyhound trainer.

Quite apt, considering he’s ultimately chasing a $7000 first prize with littermates Jetta’s Shout and Silver Compass in the inaugural Grassroots Regional Sprint Championship series.

The Mar ’18 Worm Burner x Shout Out Loud siblings commence their campaigns in ‘Central’ heats at Ballarat on Sunday.

And Brown ‘shout out loud’ as a proponent of the ‘Grassroots’ initiative.

“It’s ideal for dogs like Silver Compass,” he said. “Once you step him up to the higher grades, he struggles.

“He’s very competitive but lacks the class and that’s why these concepts are fantastic.”

Silver Compass – runner-up in last year’s GRV Battler’s Cup at Bendigo – hasn’t won since early March, but Brown says he’s “jumping out of his skin”.
“But he’s more a 500-metre dog… He’ll stay straight from the ‘check’ but once clear, he’ll drift out to the middle of the track.”

Brown is also bullish on the chances of Jetta’s Shout.

“Her form doesn’t look good on paper, but she’s been striking trouble in her races. However, if she jumps, she’ll take some running down.”

Silver Compass (14 from 92) and Jetta’s Shout (18 from 94) have similar form lines. However, Silver Compass has won three from seven over this track/distance with a 25.42sec PB, while Jetta’s Shout has only two seconds from seven starts at Ballarat.

WATCH: Jetta’s Shout (3) semaphores a 25.72sec (Best) win at Shepparton on July 15.

Five heats will be conducted on Sunday with Jetta’s Shout (Box 5) in Heat 2 (Race 6, 4.32pm) and Silver Compass (Box 2) in Heat 3 (Race 7, 4.47pm).

A former road maintenance worker for the City of Greater Bendigo, Brown was a johnny-come-lately to the sport. He only started training in 2008, but that doesn’t mean he was a complete novice in the sport.

“I owned a couple of greyhounds in the 1970s but had a break for around 30 years due to family and work commitments,” Brown said.

“But I got back into greyhound racing after building some concrete water tanks in Junortoun for Barry McNamara and Lorraine Cookson. They had a litter there and offered me a free pup.”

Since then, Brown has been associated with greyhounds the calibre of Pure Titanium and his litter brother Gold Compass.

And more recently he’s prepared city winners Rezzie’s Choice (a litter brother of Silver Compass and Jetta’s Shout) and Dark Compass, who is currently leading Bendigo’s GOTY award.

Brown also thanked Bamawm breeders Vivianne Giles and Peter Bartlett who whelped down the March 2018 Worm Burner x Shout Out Loud litter. Vivianne trains multiple city winner Brady’s Shout (16 from 101), who is also a member of this litter.

Trained by Brown, Shout Out Loud (15 from 98) also has a 12-month-old litter by 2018 G1 Melbourne Cup winner My Redeemer.

The litter (five male, two female) was whelped down by Brown and his wife Linda.

And Brown says Shout Out Loud now lives the ‘life of Riley’.

“She’s a family pet and has got a home forever.”

Peter QuiltyPeter Quilty

Peter Quilty

Peter Quilty has more than three decades of experience as assistant editor of Victorian Greyhound Weekly. He was editor of GRV monthly magazine The Adviser (2001-09) and owner/publisher of Australian Greyhound Monthly. He also served on the selection panel for the inaugural GRV ‘Hall of Fame’ inductees and for several years was an adjudicator on the Victorian GOTY. He’s also published greyhound racing yearbooks and wrote the ‘Bold Trease’ video script.

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