Miami, Florida: Flagler Greyhound Park's Kiowa Willowwisp is like the Energizer Bunny

The dogs at Flagler Greyhound Park would surrender if they could, so good is Kiowa Willowwisp at what she does. The national wins leader just rolls on and on, racking up one triumph after another, most of them in an incredibly easy manner. Sixty-one times the brindle female has gone to post at the Miami dog track, and fifty-two of those she has emerged with a victory. Currently working on a ten race winning streak, Kiowa Willowwisp is money in the bank once she makes the lead. In sixty-seven career outings, she has never been run down after she gets her nose in front at the first turn. And these days at Flagler, there seems to be no greyhound capable of beating her there, certainly not on a consistent basis.

The sixty-two pound wonder's latest win was in the mud and muck at Flagler on Sunday, July 29th. Coming out of the far outside eight hole, she outran the five and one early to establish a margin that would only grow larger as the race progressed around the Flagler oval. At the end of the tilt she was seven in front, running the only sub-thirty-one second time of the day, a crisp 30.94 on a slow track. It was victory number thirty-four of the calendar year, and her thirty-third in thirty-six Flagler tries. In an odd coincidence, the last greyhound to defeat Willowwisp on the 1,650 foot distance, Hallo Lady Flyer, has not won since that upset, running fourth in a grade B contest the same day that Willowwisp was extending her streak. Much like an episode of Star Trek where Spock and McCoy are sent through a time portal that the woman they found there could not return from because bad things would happen to her if she tried, Flagler is where Willowwisp seems destined to stay for the rest of her career. She has been ticketed for bad behavior on the track at both Wheeling Downs in West Virginia and at Mardi Gras racetrack in Miami, but at Flagler she has never shown these tendencies to do anything but chase the bunny.

Now Kiowa Willowwisp isn't the only Flagler standout running at the facility. Our Ned Pepper, who went from Maiden to A in the minimum five starts in undefeated fashion, has recovered from perhaps too much success too fast. After the superlative beginning to his career, Ned went six races in a row with just one third place finish, but now is back on track, posting seven wins since then, six of those in grade A. On July 27th, Ned Pepper got around in sixth place at the turn in a sprint and then tore off after the leader, Kiowa AK Keefer. He did everything but get his nose all the way past Keefer, who is by no means a slouch, sharing a dead-heat win with the early foot specialist. It was the twelfth win of the year for both of these fine racers.

The day before, on Thursday the 27th, Kay Annihilate chalked up career win number forty, living up to her moniker and crushing her competition in the feature eight race. Annihilate won by a full eight lengths in the matinee performance's quickest time, a 31.26 second effort. She went off at even odds, returning $4.00 to those who figured they would double their money with a chance on her. In the day's Maiden event, Hanson Handsome won the first of what may quite possibly be many when he shook off a bad start and roared back from a nine length deficit at the turn to win going away. The January 2006 puppy hasn't tasted defeat in two schooling heats and now in this official start, and many expect big things from the red male. Earlier in the week, Vegas Gal made it five consecutive firsts, coming from behind to record her fifteenth win of the year. Vegas Gal rarely takes a backwards step on the Flagler racing surface, as evidenced by the fact that in only one of these wins was she on top at the bend.