He looked "as green as grass" and was having his first test over 516m, but the David Pringle-trained El Rey created a big impression winning a heat of the Bill & Peg Miller Memorial Cup at Dubbo last Saturday.
El Rey was slowly away, ran off on the first corner, found trouble on the back straight, and then had to negotiate his way past a wayward rival in the home straight to win comfortably.
His time of 30.18 means he will have his work cut out in Saturday night's $20,000 to the winner final against faster heat winners Tank Keeping (29.52) and Zipping Ariel (29.72), but he is capable of causing an upset.
El Rey, "the king" in Spanish, is named after singer Vicente Fernandez, who is looked upon in Mexico as a national treasure, in the same vein as Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley are in the USA.
David Pringle said: "As you could see in his heat, El Rey is very green because I had to rush his preparation to get him ready for the Bill & Peg Miller series in time.
"But he is definitely something special and in 12 months time, we could be watching a really outstanding greyhound.''
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Pringle is justifiably proud as El Rey represents the eighth generation of greyhounds trained by his family.
He is a son of Midnight Return, who is a granddaughter of David Pringle's 2012 Group One National Futurity winner Midnight Capers.
That bitch was a great grand-daughter of Ready To Rise, a daughter of the Pringle clan's Ready To Rain, an outstanding stayer.
Also related to El Rey is David Pringle's most famous race dog, Shakey Jakey, who held the Wentworth Park 520m record for more than a decade from April, 2014 to October 2024.
El Rey after his Bill & Peg Miller Memorial Cup Heat win | Photo: @DubboGreyhounds Facebook
Late Night News, the best stayer in NSW, looked unlucky when second to Queenslander Autumn Storm in the final of the $250,000 to the winner The Ladbrokes 715, and a subsequent health problem suggests the run was even better than it looked.
Autumn Storm, who had been beaten eight lengths by Late Night News in a heat of The 715 at The Gardens, led all the way to win the final from box one, with the NSW star coming from last early after exiting a difficult box seven draw, to be runner-up, less than two lengths from the winner.
