Wooler chaser is perfectly placed for Townsville upset

By Pat McLeod

A recent winning form line, the promise of ‘the best is yet to come’ and a box one draw has Silver Starline poised to cause an upset over 498 metres in Townsville on Tuesday night.

The Hayley Wooler-trained sprinter may not have the big-race results as some of her opponents in the race, however, as the young conditioner points out, her time is yet to come.

“She (Silver Starline) has raced against a lot of this field and has proven that she is not out of this class,” the 22-year-old said.

“I have no doubt she can mix it with them. It is a hard race, but these are the level of dogs she needs to be able to perform well against.

“She is also in very good form at the moment (three wins and a second from her past four starts).

“She is also jumping really well lately and hopefully she can continue to do that. She is just over two and a half years of age and I believe we are yet to see the best from her. The Fernando Bales are known to mature late and I believe that will be the case with her.

“She has plenty of very good traits. She is a very hard chaser and her box manners are faultless.”

Tuesday night’s race is packed with class with most boxes occupied by dogs who have had feature race success, including Showtime Isaac (trained by Tony Parker) who won last week’s North Queensland Cup, Steve Scott’s Farmor Fired Up (Rockhampton Derby) and Farmor Casual (Rockhampton Futurity) and 2023 Townsville Cup winner More Peaches (Mick Boody).

Victory in the $5005-to-the-winner event would be a fitting finale to what has been a career-shaping year for the Townsville-based Wooler.

Earlier this year she was named Queensland’s Young Achiever of the Year at the annual Racing Queensland greyhound awards.

She also took on greyhound training full-time to help the family through an extremely busy period and currently sits second on the Townsville trainers’ premiership on 1922 points behind Bobbie-Jean Chaffey (2478).

Although she is ‘really enjoying’ full-time training Wooler said she would ‘keep her options open’.

“I really love being involved in the sport, but I am still very young so will just do what I am doing now, take everything in my stride and see what the future brings,” Hayley said.

Wooler is surrounded by family with her mother Jo, father Andrew and brother Drew all part of the ‘roster’ at the kennel that currently has about 30 dogs in work.

As Jo Wooler points out, Hayley has the backing of her whole family.

“We are all very proud of what she continues to achieve,” Jo said.

“She follows several generations of the family who have been involved in greyhound racing, back to her great grandfather Jacky Barr.

“She works hard and is very good at what she does. As long as she is happy doing what she is doing.”