Patience will hopefully pay for Partland

By Wayne Heming

Patience and perseverance could pay off for Townsville trainer Mark Partland with Shelby’s Boy rated a big chance in the Townsville Maiden 1000 over 380 metres on Tuesday night.

Partland has stayed loyal to Shelby’s Boy (from a Superior Product and Urana Shelby litter), who is the oldest dog in the race at two years and eight months.

While he made his racetrack debut almost a year ago, Tuesday's event will only be his fourth race start.

“He had some issues when I got him,” Partland said. 

“But, he also had some ability, as well.

"When I got him, he was definitely a work in progress. He was very immature and wouldn’t chase properly, which was obviously a concern.”

Partland decided to put the dog out in a paddock to give him time to mature after he finished fifth to Panadom in May last year.

He gave him a couple of trial runs in June and September of last year.

But, it wasn’t until he ran second to Woodland Oscar over the 380 metres on May 11 and backed it up with the win over Hara’s Oscar in his heat last week that he started to show his promise.

“He did a back muscle during his time in the paddock and it’s taken 11 months for him to race again in the heats. That’s a long time,” Partland said.

“He’s by Superior Product out of a bitch of ours, Urana Shelby, who was a handy bitch but he just took a long time to mature. He just wanted to play all the time.

“We sent him to Brisbane for a while to try and sort him out, but that didn’t work out, so we just brought him back home and put him in a paddock and let him mature.”

Partland said the time away from the track had done the trick with Shelby’s Boy.

“He is a lot more switched on than he was. He couldn’t seem to concentrate totally on the job at hand,” he said.

“We trialled him for a while and he ran some pretty good times, which is why we kept him and persevered with him for so long. If we didn’t own him, he probably wouldn’t be here.”

Partland said he liked the dog’s conformation.

“He’s a good, strong dog, well put together. I think he is going to be a nice 500 metre dog if we can get that far with him," he said. 

“His first task, though, is to get around in the Final.

“I think he has drawn the right box because in his heat he came out of the six box and all he wanted to do was get to the rails.”

The other two heat winners in the decider, Final Storm, trained by Heath Ardle, and Madeline Rupee, who impressed winning at her first start for trainer Jay Schafer, both have strong claims for the $5,005 first prize.