Drum Thunder Pulls Upset in $50,000 He's My Man Classic at Palm Beach Kennel Club

Drum Thunder won the $50,000 He's My Man Classic stakes at Palm Beach Kennel Club on Saturday night, January 26th, leaving kennel owner Norm Rader shocked. If Radar was surprised, imagine how the bettors who pounded his other greyhound entry in the race, Nobooth For Gary, were feeling after watching the 18-1 shot Drum Thunder lead this field box to wire. Rader's wins in stakes races at Palm Beach Kennel Club are now about as unexpected as the Patriots winning football games, but he normally does so with the favorite. In this case, the He's My Man Classic was won by the longest shot on the board, sending the railbirds into a frenzy of ticket tearing and grumbling.

Drum Thunder is by no means a slouch, having won the 2007 Puppy Stakes this past Labor Day in a dead heat finish with Craigie O'Nellie, but with Gary occupying the one hole it seemed a foregone conclusion that he would make the lead and the race would be for second place. Gary had rebounded from a last place effort in the first of the 4 elimination rounds to post a trio of runaway victories from inside posts to advance to the finals, and he had taken 5 of his last 6 while wearing the red blanket. It was his race to lose and he did just that.

Drum Thunder, a red bitch out of Clappin Thunder and Glengar Lass, had won 18 times in 58 tries coming into the He's My Man Classic, including two triumphs in the qualifying races. The 29 month old racer broke on top from the 5 hole, while Nobooth For Gary came out a tad late and could never manage to take advantage of his position on the rail, clearing the turn in fourth but not in the mix. While Gary was scrambling to make a recovery and get near the front, Drum Thunder flashed her early foot to the turn and made it there in front of a hard charging and more than game Bohemian Dionne. A veteran of 100 lifetime starts with 86 of those at Palm Beach Kennel Club, Dionne chased Thunder down the backside after outrunning another high odds greyhound, Dave's Pricilla, through the corner. Thunder's lead was a pair of lengths at the first call and just a single one as the duo turned for home, with the outcome in extreme doubt. However, Drum Thunder would not give into the pressure from Bohemian Dionne late, and she crossed the line first by a length in 29.56 seconds for the 545 yards.

Nobooth For Gary had gone off at 3-5 odds, so when the returns came back, they were very profitable for whatever soul foresaw the clunker of a race he was going to run. However, Bohemian Dionne's 3-1 odds kept the tote results from reading like phone numbers. Thunder paid $38 to win, the quiniela pairing of Thunder and Dionne came back for $68, with the exacta paying a hefty $187. The triple of 5-2-3, with Pricilla hanging tough for third place, was worth over $900. Gary ran fourth, meaningful at that point only to those who needed him there to complete the superfecta; very meaningful if you played 5-2-3-1 to the tune of $3,558!

Rader has won the He's My Man Classic back-to-back, as his Switzler Jammin took the stakes last year. Drum Thunder gets an automatic berth now in the upcoming $50,000 Arthur J. Rooney, Sr. St. Patrick's Invitational, to be held on St. Paddy's Day, March 17th. That race will pit the best sprinters on the grounds at Palm Beach Kennel Club against one another. Rader will undoubtedly have another entry in that field, perhaps even Nobooth For Gary, where he can try to make up for how he let the gamblers down this time, as if they could ever forgive him.

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