West Palm Beach, Florida: Greyhound Standouts Run Wild at Palm Beach Kennel Club

It was a typical weekend at the Palm Beach Kennel Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, with big performances from all the usual suspects, with some upsets sprinkled in for good measure. Nobooth For Gary and Switzler Jammin, the top two sprinters on the grounds, posted impressive blowout victories. The talented but enigmatic Dash N Apache scored one of his greatest wins over the route distance, WTD Blu Vinny absolutely dominated his 660 yard race, and Atascocita Wish had everyone checking their tickets when the sprinter won a Grade A at 25-1 odds.

Wish made a few wishes come true on Thursday afternoon, July 26th, when the sixty-two pound brindle female went box to wire in one of the week's biggest shockers. Her victims included the puppy, Craigie O Nelly, making her first Grade A appearance after rocketing up the Palm Beach grading ladder, and Springwater Hope, a winner of four straight coming into this heat and twenty-one races last meet. Stash Magoo, Bohemian Dionne and Alivefortomorrow were all present in this feature as well, but Atascocita Wish was undaunted as she broke from the five box with the proper alacrity needed to dispatch such stalwarts. Her lead at the turn was a length over WTD The Hawk, as some of the big guns found some bad racing luck along the way. Alivefortomorrow eventually took up the chase, but try as he might he could not catch up, falling a neck short in the end. Wish returned $53.40 for her first place effort and headlined a thousand dollar triple and $4,600 superfecta that surely had a couple Palm Beach bettors explaining how they arrived at such a conclusion to their astonished pals.

The final event of that day was a Grade A 3/8ths of a mile race, one in which Bohemian Calyso was favored to make it five straight routes in the win column. The sixty five pound red fawn male has been easily the best over the longer distance at Palm Beach Kennel Club this current meet, but Dash N Apache must not have read the script for this one. Apache is the type of dog that seems to have a map that helps him to find where in the race he can run into trouble, as he often simply refuses to leave the rail to pass a dog and more often than not winds up being blocked just as he is getting going. Usually Dash N Apache breaks like a woman shopping for a pair of shoes for a wedding- agonizingly slowly- but on this day he came out with the pack and managed to clear the escape turn in fourth. Negotiating his way down the frontstretch, he passed one greyhound and found himself in unfamiliar territory, third to the first call. That was the good news; the bad was that Calyso was ahead of him by some four lengths, in the process of passing Rolling Panther, who was obviously overmatched. Calyso went by Panther at the end of the toteboard, and Apache, still staying untrue to form, cleverly slipped by her as well and took up the chase. Still trailing by a length at the far turn call, Dash N Apache found his next, and last, gear and sped by Calyso at the wire to win the race by a neck in 37.60, giving his supporters much to cheer about.

There would be no such theatrics when Nobooth For Gary stepped on the track the next day. After going a pair of races without winning, Gary was chomping at the bit, and when he drew a six hole against a field that clearly had no answers for how to deal with him, he was off and away. Leading by four at the Palm Beach Kennel Club first turn over the 545 yard course, Nobooth For Gary was literally off to himself. In the end he was over ten lengths in front, while the rest of the field could easily have mistaken him for a yellow version of the mechanical hare they chase in vain time and time again. Gary stopped the timers at 29.42 seconds, far and away the quickest clocking of the day as he recorded his third win this month and the twenty-sixth of his Palm Beach career.

WTD Blu Vinny could not be accused of leaving anything in the kennel when he ran his 3/8ths race Friday night, July 27th. The blue male looked like a streak of blue lightning once the box opened, zooming out to a big lead and giving the other racers no chance to get between him and the lure. At the wire he was still piling it on, winning by twelve and a half in 37.87, with the chart writer at Palm Beach Kennel Club giving him the comment "in another zip code." In the tenth, the feature sprint, Deco Carlo had everything running on all cylinders as he trounced JNB Angel Eyes by five lengths in 29.45, the evening's best clocking. Bohemian Picasso broke his Maiden by ten miles in the opener, and this December 2005 pup is one to watch as he will soon join the Palm Beach elite, if this effort is any indication.

The big dog at Palm Beach is Switzler Jammin, and it has been that way all year long. The black male has no trouble making the track's best dogs look like grade Cs, and he was at it again on Saturday, July 28th. Coming out of the seven hole, in with a bunch that would have tried to get his autograph if he could write, he posted his fourth win of the current meet in 29.45. So dominant was Jammin that he received the ho-hum comment "as expected" for his day's work, a wonderful performance that in reality is anything but easy to do.