The Brisbane Greyhound Racing Club and Racing Queensland today announced that the annual Thunder event, run as a lead up to the Winter Carnival staying events would be renamed as ‘The Dashing Corsair’ and be run over 600 metres to pay tribute to one of the best greyhounds to ever grace Albion Park.
The heats will be run on Thursday night May 10, with the $16,000 final to be run alongside the RQ Young Guns Final and Dave Brett Memorial Maiden Final on May 17.
The move to 600 metres was made to provide a better platform for those greyhounds launching their winter staying campaigns, with the altered feature to progress into the 710 metre events, the $25,000 to the winner Garrard’s Winter Chase on May 24 and 31 and then into the Group 1 UBET Gold Cup in early June.
Dashing Corsair is the record holder for number of wins at Albion Park with 38, and finished with an amazing 57 wins from 124 starts, earning a touch over $455,000 in prizemoney.
‘Harry’ as he was affectionately known, still holds the Albion Park 710 metre track record, which stands at 41.44 seconds, set in May 2010 and to date remains the only greyhound to win both the National Sprint and Distance Championships, winning the 2009 National Sprint at Cannington in Western Australia and the 2011 National Distance at his home track Albion Park at his final start.
He was inducted into the Queensland Greyhound Racing Hall Of Fame in 2015.