Kansas City, Kansas: The Woodlands Best Don't Let the Greyhound Bettors Down

The Woodlands in Kansas City, Kansas received some rave performances from some of its biggest greyhound celebrities in the past few days. Four-legged luminaries such as Flying Fabian and WW's Green Apple brought their A games to post, as well as BH's Rackem Up, USS Talladega, and USS San Juan. Nimby Leroy held on against a wild stretch runner, and yet another Flying dog was unleashed on the competition at The Woodlands when Flying Blackbird made his Maiden debut. Still another pup lurks in the wings, with the potential to one day join this bunch as a headliner.

Flying Fabian and Flying Tanana, both coming off the recent Kansas Bred Sprint that Fabian had emerged victorious in, hooked up in a 660 yard affair on July 30th. Fabian had been bumped around a bit in his first route try a few days earlier, but in this one he got around in second place, to Tanana, and then proceeded to win going away in 36.91 seconds as a 1-1 odds chalk. Fabian's route triumph was his ninth win of the current meet. In the same performance, in the card's finale, superstar WW's Green Apple took out his frustrations upon finishing second in the Kansas Bred to Fabian by routing another field. Coming off a five and a half length pasting of BH's Rackem Up and friends on July 27th, Green Apple took aim at the up-and-coming Canavas, who had rocketed to Grade A from Maiden on the strength of four double-digit lower grade wins out of five attempts. But Green Apple and the rest of this bunch put the kid in her place, at least for the time being. Green Apple grabbed the lead right away and posted another blazing time, a 29.90 as he took a seven and a half length decision, while Canavas absorbed some first turn trouble and finished last, left to wonder why this particular heat had been so hard.

The day before, Sunday the 29th, USS Talladega, a red brindle male who had clocked 29.80 the race prior, won in a cakewalk with only Flying Rosebush able to keep him in his sights as the field went over the wire. Talladega's 29.94 seconds for the 1,650 foot sprint was the only sub-thirty second time of the day. In the Grade A route race, Flying Finch held off Flying St. Paul in a tilt that included D'Bulls Kani going the distance for his first time and the explosive Aerosmith, whose late kick in this one could only garner him a fourth after he found no running room in the race's early stages. In the last race, Greta's Duece made it eleven wins in twenty-one Woodlands starts when he clung to victory over Flying Britt, a tough customer at the facility for over a year now.

Flying Blackbird flew to an easy Maiden win on Thursday, August 2nd, scoring in his very first official outing. After schooling well, and improving each time over the sprint, Blackbird went out to a six length lead at the first turn call and made it almost nine by the time he reached the wire in 30.83 seconds. Later on in the program, Nimby Leroy went to the corner on top, and seemed headed for a walk in the park, but the veteran runner Rosemary Drive suddenly got things going and ran the stretch as if she were late for a hair appointment. Coming from seventh at the first bend, Rosemary cut her deficit down to a single solitary length, losing by that margin as the finish line was a welcome sight for Leroy, who crossed it in 30.64. In the day's last event, another veteran closer, Escondido, suffered a similar fate when the black female just missed denying BH's Rackem Up his seventeenth win of the meet, losing by a head after a furious flurry, falling a head short to the two year old male.

USS San Juan used his awesome early foot to register his sixth win of the year on the 28th, and was facing a challenge from Nimby Leonard and Nimby Penny in a race that hadn't run as of this writing. On that same card, Kushner Kennel was set to unveil their latest hope, Sunflower Drive, who had schooled in quite similar fashion to Flying Blackbird and now will look to move up The Woodlands' grading ladder to knock heads with some of the aforementioned stalwarts in the near future.