Tom Tzouvelis on hunt for 2021 Publicans Cup

By Jordan Gerrans

With a greater focus on starting his kennel on Thursday evenings at Albion Park, Park Ridge trainer Tom Tzouvelis has the 2021 Publicans Cup in his sights.

Four heats of the annual Publicans Cup series for Fifth Grade dogs will headline racing this week at greyhound racing headquarters in Brisbane.

Tzouvelis, fresh off a trip to the Top End of Australia to race his dogs, has kennel mates Sleuth and Strategise in the heats.

The Tzouvelis kennel has had a freshen up of its stocks in recent weeks as Sleuth and Strategise have continued to go from strength to strength with racing.

The team has been in-form of late, collecting almost 20 winners since June 22.

“We moved on a few older dogs we had and we have started to concentrate on the young ones, we have some good young ones coming through,” Tzouvelis said.

“These ones for Thursday night, we have been lucky for them to have a few starts in the city with them.

“It is more of the city races we will be aiming for from here.

“The dogs have been going good, these boys when we first got them – they were pretty raw – and fortunately, they have clicked with the way we do things.”

Sleuth and Strategise are both progeny of Allen Deed and Dokmai.

A popular racing series in the greyhound community, Tzouvelis said the annual Publicans Cup would be a great title to claim if his dogs can perform.

A winner at his last two starts, Sleuth gets the inside draw in the second heat of the evening – race five – while Strategise is in the opening heat, set to jump with the black rug on his back.

Sleuth is unbeaten in his two career starts from box one.

“Sleuth is racing in good form at the moment and so is Strategise, they are both starting to mature and learn to race,” Tzouvelis said.

“Their times are starting to get really competitive, Strategise went 29.79 seconds last week at Albion and Sleuth went 30.32 seconds at Ipswich – they are coming into these races with good form.

“Strategise has not got the best draw, it is a bit awkward in seven for him, but we are hoping, as his box manners were much better last week and he ran a personal best first sectional as well, he can maintain jumping like that.

“That has been both of their biggest weaknesses really, they are not brilliant out of the boxes – they are only average early.

“The time Strategise ran last week was not a fluke because he trialled 29.96 seconds two weeks earlier.”

Tzouvelis is back in the Sunshine State after a recent trip to Darwin for their Cup carnival.

He first raced his dogs in the Northern Territory back in 2004 and will often send dogs up to NT trainers to continue their careers once their racing days in Queensland have come to an end.

In Thursday’s heats for the Publicans Cup – he deserves a bit of luck after trouble struck his kennel while in the NT.

Tzouvelis’ Sunburst was on the way to claiming the Listed Chief Minister’s Cup before a fall resulted in one of the dogs in the event turning around and running towards the field, with stewards deeming it was a ‘no-race’ due to the circumstances.

While the Brisbane trainer was understanding of the situation and decision by authorities, he would have loved to fly back with a Listed race in his pocket.

“They have got a local rule in place that if a dog touches the lure, it is a no-race,” Tzouvelis said.

“They took the race off her, which was no good, as we ran first and third in that one.

“Fortunately it does not happen much but it was just disappointing for it to happen on a feature race.”