Carramar Drive, trained at Tweed Heads by Mark Small, will be out to enhance his impressive recent record of five wins and two seconds from his past seven starts, when he exits box eight in race eight at Ipswich on Tuesday.
Small, who once worked for the now defunct NSW National Coursing Association, the club that conducted racing at Wentworth Park, Penrith, and established The Gardens course, is the son of Harry Small, who prepared the former crack speedster The Cadillac.
"A few years ago my wife Ruth and I were living in a townhouse complex but were allowed to have one dog and when she realised how much I missed the greyhounds we contacted top Northern Rivers breeder and trainer Mitch Northfield,'' Mark Small said.
"He had a litter from his good bitch Mitcharlie Mia and sold us a nine months’ old pup which races at Carramar Drive, named after the street in which we live.
"Main reason I got him was that I needed to exercise after having a serious operation but Carramar Drive has had a succession of problems since he began racing.
"At one stage I spent five months nursing him back to health, then some apart from the setback of having split webbings, he was attacked by an off-the-leash pit bull.
"Carramar Drive will turn four on the day he races at Ipswich and while he has won a masters race in Queensland, where three-and-a-half is the age limit, from Tuesday onwards he will be able to contest those veterans' races in NSW.''
"Yes, when Our Last Hoorah retires so do we,'' Barry Evans said.
These days Roz and Barry have only two greyhounds and their other dog, Levings, also won at Gunnedah on Thursday, notching his 15th win.
Roz Evans said: "Barry is 81 and because of problems with his lungs and legs he is no longer able to walk them to the boxes.
"We have not been without greyhounds in the 40 years we've been together but Barry has been around them since he was 16, he grew up in a greyhound racing family.
"The best dogs we've had were Two Romeo Road, who won 20 races and over $50,000, while a couple of years later we had a litter, by Big Daddy Cool from Be My Girl, whelped in December, 2009, which earned $180,000.
"In those days the prizemoney was nothing like it is now but that litter included Yo Cool Maxie, whose prizemoney was $62,000 from 32 wins and 33 placings and Little Ed, whose 17 wins and nine placings were worth $45,000.''
