News

2 February, 2025

G1 Sportsbet Temlee & Zoom Top fields announcements

The fields for selection-based races are always hotly debated and this year’s G1 Sportsbet Temlee & Zoom Top are no exception. 

This year’s sprinters class shows an abundance of depth – The MGRA could run three divisions of The Temlee and there would still be high quality greyhounds missing out on a crack at the Group 1 feature.

Stayers, as always, are a little harder to come by and with injuries to the likes of Palawa King, Exploded, Canya Amy, Ella’s Babe & Aunt Virginia and the non-nominations of greyhounds like Canya All Class, Late Night News and Valpolicella the nominations were light on but that provides more intrigue with the selectors having to make some speculative choices.

The tagline for the Sportsbet Australian Cup Carnival is ‘UNMISSABLE’ and that’s certainly fitting with the way these three weeks are shaping up.


Last year, The MGRA made a change to the race conditions to make the Australian Cup a true three-week series with The Temlee becoming an exemption race into the semi-finals (week 2 of the Carnival).

With north of 100 nominations for the Australian Cup Heats all in consideration for the G1 Sportsbet Temlee, the selectors were set an unenviable task given the quality amongst the nominations from top to bottom.

The eight heats of the Australian Cup Carnival are set to be red-hot with the likes of Morton, Schillaci, Big Energy, Paw Oswald, Deadly Avenger, Mepunga Tully, Canya All Class, Warm Cockles, Field Day, Here Comes Milli, Dutch Riot, Zipping Kai and many, many more set to engage.

and, that’s not to mention the calibre of dogs who missed out on the heats entirely due to ranking – Bebop Jazz, Elliott & Leo Bale – just to name a few.


With the lack of nominations (12) for the Zoom Top, many would argue that the selection process would’ve been easy – but with a clear-cut top end and then some speculative decisions to be made, I would argue the opposite.

Take Unreal Speed for instance, you could make the argument that he is one of the most talented greyhounds in the race but we haven’t seen him since May, so what do you do with him? His Satisfactory trial at Geelong was electric – 25.589 – but that was over the 460m, is he ready for a gruelling 730m journey against some of the best stayers in the land? His Trainer, the legendary Robert Britton says so.

Can Black Silencer turn the tables on Ethanol Water? Will it be one of the X-Factor dogs in Lanfranco, Unreal Speed or Cashing Out? The out-and-out stayers in Irish Millie & Pass Mark? Or can Groovebird land a G1 win in her fifth attempt in this grade?