Horsham Cup Second ‘Nature' To Gealls

CUPS specialist David Geall is striving to complete a unique back-to-back brotherly Group 2 Sportsbet Horsham Cup (485m) double on Friday night.

The dual Melbourne Cup winner finds himself in the unusual situation of following in younger brother Jeff's footsteps as he attempts to add the Horsham Cup to his impressive collection of silverware.

Jeff Geall got one-up on his mentor in last year's Horsham Cup, celebrating his first victory at Group level courtesy of Jungle Panther.

"I'm trying to get out of his shadow!" Dave Geall laughed.

"Wasn't it a huge run from Jungle Panther last year. Coming from last against dogs like Baby Jaycee was one of the biggest runs you'd see in a country cup.

"Ferdinand Boy won four country cups (Ballarat, Healesville, Shepparton and Warrnambool) and Koblenz won the Cranbourne Cup, but I haven't won a Horsham Cup myself."

David has a serious chance to join his sibling/protégé on the Horsham Cup honour roll with Nature Strip, runner-up in the G2 Warragul Cup in January.

Nature Strip – which interestingly isn't named after his illustrious thoroughbred namesake – is raced by Queenslander Terry Hines, who's no stranger to country cups success himself.

Hines owned the 2004 Australian Greyhound of the Year Whisky Assassin, whose feature race resume included the Ballarat, Geelong and Shepparton Cups.

Whisky Assassin actually made his final appearance when winning a heat of the 2005 Horsham Cup, being scratched from the final and retired to stud.

Nature Strip, a well-related April '21 son of Collision and Zara's Entity, finished second to fastest heat winner Tangela Bale (26.75sec) last Friday night.

While he was beaten, Nature Strip clocked 26.88sec in defeat, which was quicker than the other three heat winners.

Victorious in his two previous appearances at Horsham, albeit they were in May last year, Nature Strip has drawn box one for Friday night's $55,000 to-the-winner final.

He occupies the third line of betting at $4 behind Jason Thompson's $2.40 favourite Explicit (box 8), a 26.92sec heat winner, and $3.50 second elect Tangela Bale (box 4), prepared by Rob Camilleri.

"He was going to be a chance from any box, but now with box one we give him a good chance," Geall said.

"I do think he's a better one-bend dog than a two-turn dog, but we like our dogs to do both.

"He has gone super on one-bend tracks. He ran the fastest heat in the Warragul Cup (25.41sec) and then ran very fast time in the final behind Tim Zoo (25.49sec).

"Very early on he ran 27.07sec at Horsham as a pup and I'd like to think he's a much better dog now.

"It's a very good field. Explicit has drawn well in box eight and Tangela Bale is going well, but Nature Strip has got the box to put himself right in the race.

"He just needs to jump like he did last week, because he can miss it."