Images: Louise Partland
By Jordan Gerrans
Perseverance has most certainly paid off for the North Queensland kennel of veteran trainer Harold Hovi.
Hovi’s kennel star - Redemption Day – is the first greyhound through to the 2022 Final of the Townsville Cup after taking out the inaugural edition of the Townsville Wildcard on Wednesday evening.
Introduced this year, the Wildcard series gives northern city trainers – such as Bundaberg, Rockhampton and Townsville – with a direct entry into their local Cup Finals.
After Hovi’s Excuse Me Jack ran in the money in last year's Cup, he returns this time around with Redemption Day, who is nearing the peak form he showed as a youngster.
Redemption Day came from back in the field to overturn race favourite Paulie Walnuts – prepared by leading local dog man Bradley Belford – in the concluding stages to snatch victory.
Hovi – who works on a cattle property two hours south of Townsville for a day job – was a pleased man on Thursday morning following the result.
“I thought it was bloody good,” Hovi – who is referred to as ‘the magic man’ in North Queensland dogs circles - said with a laugh.
“I was really happy, to be quite honest.
“He is not a hard dog to train; he is very easy to deal with.”
The experienced trainer (pictured above with his wife Desma) would have wondered at times if Redemption Day was ever going to get back to his best after a shoulder concern forced him away from the track for a lengthy period.
He was half a dozen victories from seven starts before injury struck and in the only race he did not win - he ran third.
He was not een at the track between early August and the middle of December last year.
And, since then, the black dog has only been lightly raced, as well.
Hovi has always thought Redemption Day was a Cup level dog in terms of his quality and preference at the distance, but following a shoulder injury where he tore a muscle, the trainer needed to slowly build the emerging dog's confidence.
“It was just a lot of patience and time, waiting for him to heal,” Hovi recalls.
“It took months for it to heal.
“He seems to be back to his best now.
“That first start he had over the 498 metres was just brilliant in his early days and that was what convinced us to persist with him during the injury.”