Pazzo Hawkeye on a Nine Race Winning Streak at Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Park

As fast as the Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Park racing surface has always been known to be, it is doubtful that many racers have run as many sub-thirty second times over the oval as Pazzo Hawkeye has done in a short period this year. Currently on a nine race winning skein, Pazzo Hawkeye is a threat to break one of the industry's fastest 5/16ths of a mile records at Naples every time he goes to post. Pazzo Hawkeye is taking square aim at RMJ's Play Time's track standard of 29.54, set the day after New Year's Day of 1999 during the course of an incredible seventeen race winning streak. Pazzo Hawkeye is now working on a nine race span where he has been first over the finish line, as he continues to tear up Naples.

I do need to be fair to RMJ's Play Time, a stellar performer at Naples who ran under the thirty second plateau, which is the greyhound racing equivalent of the four minute mile, an amazing ten times in a row in that spectacular stretch eight years ago. This included a pair of track record lowering clockings, one in December and another shortly after in January. Pazzo Hawkeye has a ways to go before he can claim such lofty credentials, but he has eclipsed the thirty second mark eight times since the middle of February, a period that covers his last seventeen efforts. Hawkeye also has on his resume the fastest time of the year at Naples-Fort Myers, a sizzling 29.79 run on March 7th.

That came during the Coconut Stakes elimination rounds, an event that Pazzo Hawkeye was a beaten second in in the finals on St. Patrick's Day. That was the last time that any Naples hound got the better of this 73 pound red male out of Gable Dodge and Pazzo Foxy, as he has been first in the nine consecutive races and in seventeen of his last nineteen. In the most recent streak, Pazzo Hawkeye has scored a triumph from every box except for the five hole to show that he does not need to be on the inside or on the outside to do his best. The only one of these wins that was in doubt at any point was his last one, in which Hawkeye took a length and a half decision over Raising Queen in a race that saw him pull it out late.

The recently turned two-year-old male has been so superior at Naples-Fort Myers that he has gone off the betting favorite in every race he has run at the Florida track with one exception. Last September 16th, he was the second choice at odds of almost 5-2 in a race that he was able to win with a big stretch kick, and he has been at odds of over 2-1 just once since. With the ability to outrush his competitors and sail home free and clear, or to come from off the pace, Pazzo Hawkeye already has chalked up twenty-nine career victories at Naples for proud owner Gail Toenges. A new track record may be in the cards for this exceptional athlete, but Naples is full of some talented sprinters that could upend Hawkeye's apple cart; standouts such as B's Rebate and Senator Geller. To be as highly regarded as the greyhound whose record he now chases, RMJ's Play Time, Pazzo Hawkeye will have to stay on his toes in the Florida sun.