Revenge and the End of a Streak at Southland Greyhound Park

As so often occurs in dog racing, one fine greyhound got another shot at its nemesis right after a big loss in a stakes final, with Southland Greyhound Park in West Memphis, Arkansas the venue for this rematch. As a matter of fact, the dogs that ran one-two-three in the $50,000 Southland Sprint Derby Championship on August 4th all came back to meet six days later, with a different result. Soprano Drive, who lost the Derby crown because of his wide-running style, recovered from a terrible start to outrun Derby champ HDM Juana and notch a measure of revenge on Saturday night, August 10th, with the show dog from the title tilt, Greys Real Deal, making a futile late bid and running fifth.

Soprano Drive's start in this race was abysmal, and few in the crowd of almost a thousand Southland patrons would have bet a single dollar on him if they could have had a vision of what his first few yards out of the box would look like. Breaking from the four box, Drive found himself in a greyhound sandwich formed by the two and five, but somehow drove through the traffic to take up the chase of the leader, Macs Amillion. Meanwhile, Juana in the one broke okay but was cleanly outrushed to the corner by Amillion, and she found herself in third as the race played out. Greys Real Deal, who had been nearly unbeatable a few weeks back, got clobbered at the turn and despite having indescribable late speed, would not contend in this one.