Cutlack’s next target is balance in her booming career

By Pat McLeod

Jedda Cutlack may not be over-confident about her chances in the Publicans Cup Final at Albion Park on Thursday night, but that is a minor detail in what is shaping as a spectacular year for the young trainer.

No matter how her two chasers, Caramel Queen (box two) and Lightning Buzz (box five), perform in the annual 520 metre fifth grade event, Cutlack already has the runs on the board.

To date, her figures for 2023 are incredible – 597 starts for 120 wins, 187 placings and a prize money total of $865,930.

She sits 12^th on the national trainers’ prize money list and is the leading Queenslander in that tally.

Making those statistics even more mind-boggling is the fact that Cutlack has had a trainer’s license for just over three years.

Yes, her success has been super-charged by being part of the powerful Tom Tzouvelis kennel at Brisbane’s Park Ridge, but Cutlack has not waisted one minute of those three years in the pursuit of her greyhound dream.

As Tzouvelis has pointed out on numerous occasions, Cutlack’s burgeoning career has come through hard work and a passion for the animals in her care.

The 28-year-old says she is ‘certainly conscious and very appreciative of how well we are going’, but even she is taken aback by the blur of success that has been the past three years.

“When I first got my trainers license (in the middle of 2020) my aim was to have two to five dogs on a house block and slowly get involved,” Cutlack explains.

“But, when the opportunity arose with Tom (when he was faced with a serious health battle), to not only work with him, but also take on a managerial role, well that was a tough decision.

“But, when I thought about it, I thought that if my five-to-10-year plan was to have a dog property and I had the opportunity to do it right now, why not. Why not just go for it.

“Yes, it was a lot to take on initially. It was a lot of hard work. But, I would like to think that I am doing alright at it.”

That ‘hard work’ means regular 18-hour days, something that is not an unknown scenario for many in the industry.

Making that workload even more ‘interesting’ are weeks like this one, when the kennel not only has racers on local tracks, but also Lily Monelli and Showpiece in the Townsville Cup Consolation on Friday night and Valhalla in the National Straight Track Championship at Victoria’s Healesville on Saturday.

“This is probably the first time we have been stretched between two different places (Townsville and Healesville) and it has really emphasized how important it is to have people in the industry who you know and trust at those destinations who can help out,” Cutlack says.

“It certainly is good to have dogs that are good enough to travel, but it certainly adds another layer to the things that we have to think about and organize.”

Cutlack says early success has also fast-tracked a focus on work-life balance – something that most trainers in the industry struggle with.

“Getting that balance right is becoming more of a focus for me,” she says.

“You can't work 20 hours a day all your life.

“Of course, I'm so used to being busy so when I'm not working hard I feel restless. We want that balance, but in a way that we are still able to achieve the success as well.”

Thursday night’s $18,500 Publicans Cup Final, while far from the richest on the Brisbane Greyhound Racing Club calendar, is one of the club’s most popular nights.

Eight local clubs and pubs each have drawn a finalist.

“I have to be honest; I don't have huge hopes for our chances in this Final there are some very good dogs in this race,” says Cutlack of the winning hopes of Caramel Queen and Lightning Buzz.

“If Icy Eyes (trained by Selena Zammit) gets into a good position she will run everyone down.

“The four, Get Carter (Grant Franklin) has got ability and if it parks behind someone he can certainly run on very strongly.

“The eight, Another Chance (Selena Zammit), has been in very good form lately. And, of course, the one, Dolly Dutton (Andrew Monaghan), if she jumps she will be a major danger."

Caramel Queen is certainly good enough to win, Cutlack says. 

“I was pretty pleased with her run in the heat last week. She came out OK, didn't really race super early, but she got herself into a nice position and finished up OK," Cutlack said. 

“Lightning Buzz, I like him. He has been a good dog for us so far and I think he will be pretty handy.

“You hope that he will get better with maturity because he certainly is from a line that has done that in the past. If he is in a good spot he will always run a fair race.”