By David Nagel
Trainer Daryl Brennan and the Tooradin-Dalmore Football Club were the big winners after unheralded speedster Mobile Legend produced a sustained burst of speed to capture the $74,000 Group 2 Viatek Warragul Cup (460m) on Friday night.
Mobile Legend’s electrifying victory – in the second leg of the Gippsland Festival of Racing trilogy – came after Jarick Bale secured the Group-1 Sale Cup on Boxing Day.
The third and final leg, the Traralgon Cup, will be run on Australia Day with the heats to be run this Friday 20 January.
Mobile Legend stepped beautifully from the white box, sitting outside a hot pace set by Landyn Bale in the red, before exploding to the lead on the home turn and holding off a late challenge off Titan Blazer from the check.
He became a part of country cup folklore with a flying 25.32sec victory in the $47,000 to-the-winner event.
It was a race record, slicing 0.02sec off To The Galo’s 25.34sec win in 2016 – at the time a new track record.
Mobile Legend joins the honour roll of Warragul Cup champions that include last year’s dominant winner Robbie Rotten, for young trainer Kayla Cottrell, as well as the Glenn Rounds’ trained Aeroplane Eric in 2021.
Mobile Legends sire, Aston Dee Bee, won the Warragul Cup for Seona Thompson in 2018.
The other big winner on the night was the Tooradin Dalmore Football Club, winning $5,000 in the Warragul Community Clubs’ Competition simply by being allocated Mobile Legend in the final.
An additional $6,000 was divided among three other Gippsland and community sporting groups for their allocated greyhounds finishing second to fourth.
Patrons on course enjoyed music from local band Out of Nowhere, great food and ‘non-real cash’ fun with the Playtime Casino and Cash Cube.
Former AFL champion and Brownlow Medallist Gary Ablett was also on track, mixing with the 1,500 strong-crowd on the night.
The $47,000 winners cheque took Mobile Legend’s career prize money to $116,000, with the Black Dog whelped in December 2019 having now won 15 of his 33 starts.
