Golden Chase glory puts Lakeside Cup in Corrigan’s sights

By Jordan Gerrans

Still on a high from his maiden Group victory last week, veteran dog man Gerald Corrigan has his eyes on the rich Lakeside Cup with his impressive chaser Malawi Rebel.

The Lowood-based conditioner has only ever kept a small team in training throughout his greyhound training tenure and has in recent years lifted his involvement after his retirement from the workforce.

The 72-year-old Corrigan was a truck builder at Volvo for more than two decades and with more time on his hands these days, he is able to appreciate his passion for greyhound racing.

Malawi Rebel arguably delivered him his greatest night in the sport on Thursday when the black dog claimed the Group 3 The Golden Chase Final over 520 metres.

The son of Aston Rupee did so on the Q2 Parklands surface and Corrigan will soon switch his chaser over to Q1 Lakeside, with the prestigious Lakeside Cup on the agenda next.

“I was thrilled,” he said of Thursday’s win.

“I didn't actually think he could win it. I thought he might run a place because there were some good dogs in that race.

“But, then he got the break at the corner and going down the back, I thought he was going to get run down by Scrub’s Blue.

“He's a strong dog, Scrub’s Blue, so I knew he'd be in the finish then when he was that close.

“So, I was glad to see my dog hold on and win.

“I was there with a couple of mates on Thursday night and the one who was on the balcony, he'd never been to the dogs before, so he thought it was great.”

Corrigan, who has been based in Queensland for more than three decades, owns the chaser himself, so he was smiling to snaffle the $75,000 payday on Thursday.

Malawi Rebel scored in 29.78 seconds from race favourite Backcreek Butch, with Scrub’s Blue, who was chasing a third feature win in the series, holding on for third.

Before Thursday’s breakthrough black-type triumph, the Corrigan kennel’s biggest feature result was with Black Monty in the Ipswich Young Guns series many years ago.

The experienced mentor is a dog lover and any greyhound that he trains has a home forever at his Lowood property.

“I only ever buy two pups at a time and then we keep them for the rest of their lives,” he said.

“We don't move them on to other people.

“Malawi Rebel has carried on, so it was good. I've got four pets and him. That's all I've got racing at the moment.”

The Corrigan kennel is likely to become a bit more prominent in 2027 as the veteran trainer has taken on a quartet of new pups that he is hopeful of racing soon enough.

He has two Explicit pups, which are nine months old, as well as two from an Aussie Infrared and Pronouns mating, which are six weeks of age.

Malawi Rebel has predominantly raced on the Q2 Parklands circuit during his career, which has yielded eight of his 10 career wins.

The chaser will soon make a move to the Q1 Lakeside track in search of preparation runs for the upcoming Lakeside Cup series.

The heats of the series will be contested late in October before the $100,000 decider over 457 metres in early November.

Malawi Rebel has a career-best time of 25.15 seconds on the Q1 Lakeside surface, but he has only won there twice in 13 attempts.

“That's my next mission,” he said.

“On the times he can run, he should be competitive.

"He sometimes plays up going into the boxes and if he plays up, then he's not going to do any good.

“For some reason, he just blows the start and runs into trouble. But, when he does everything like he's supposed to do it, he'd be competitive in anything.

“He broke in well, so we knew we had something there in the early days.

“I think on his breeding, he should be able to go further, maybe out to 600 metres eventually.”

Corrigan is a native of South Australia and considered heading south for the Group 1 Adelaide Cup heats this week, but Malawi Rebel was a little sore following Thursday’s win, so he has shifted focus to the Lakeside Cup.

Malawi Rebel had a Group racing pedigree before breaking through on Thursday night, contesting the Ipswich Cup and Rising Stars Finals earlier this year.