Brooke and Jamie Ennis won the 2014 Group One Golden Easter Egg with Tonk, and the Victorian training team will be back at Wentworth Park on Saturday night when their exciting youngster Tribeca tackles qualifying heats of the Million Dollar Chase.
Tribeca, named after one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in New York's lower Manhattan, has registered 10 wins and three seconds from 17 races in Victoria.
He has posted fast times such as 29.11 for 515m at Sandown, 29.72 over 525m at The Meadows, and 25.59 and 24.71 for the Geelong 460m and Warrnambool 450m journeys.
Jamie Ennis brought Tribeca to Sydney last Thursday to give the dog a trial at Wentworth Park and the greyhound was most impressive, covering the 520m in a smart 29.60 after posting sectional times of 5.48, 13.76 and 17.85 before running home in 11.75.
A Sydney trainer who watched the trial commented: "A lot of Victorian dogs tend to dwell at the start when they are coming out of the Wentworth Park boxes for the first time but Tribeca handled the start close to perfectly.''
Photo: Jason McKeown
Jamie Ennis said: "That didn't surprise me because Tribeca is very adaptable and has a lot of good attributes.
"For a big 36kg dog he usually jumps cleanly, shows good early pace and rails extremely well.
"While he only clocked 5.48 for his first split in last week's trial, we think he is capable of getting under 5.40 with that experience under his belt.
"Certainly we would not expect him to go any slower than the 29.60 he ran last week because he did look slightly lost as he went around the first turn in his trial.''
When Tonk won the Golden Easter Egg 11 years ago he recorded 29.62, coming from third early and railing to the lead going through the catching pen before winning by four lengths from two other Victorians, the Andrea Dailly-trained Hawk Alone and another Ennis-prepared dog, Warrior King.
At the time Tonk's figures were just .02sec outside the race record set by Don't Knocka Him in 2012.
Tonk had won his Easter Egg semi-final from box two and exited the same draw in the final.
If Tribeca reaches the semi-finals of the Million Dollar Chase, team Ennis will be hoping he also draws as close to the rails as possible.
