Champion NSW stayer Just Terms – a six-time Group 1 finalist – is one of the sport’s most decorated ‘half-milers’.
But to the Lords in the country town of Gunning, between Goulburn and Yass, she’s just one of the family – and loved as a pet by the grandkids.
So, there’ll be plenty of emotion if “Pink”, as she’s affectionately known, wins the Group 1 TAB Topgun Stayers (725m) at The Meadows on Saturday night.
Just Terms finished second (beaten 0.2L) to Blue Moon Rising in last year’s Topgun Stayers and trainer Jodie Lord is quietly confident of going one better in the $75,000-to-the-winner event.
“She’ll run the race of her life… She’s had a lot of work and has come good at the right time,” Lord said. “She’s naturally strong and very free winded; I’m expecting a big race from her.”
Lord added that Just Terms trialled 29.80sec over 520m at Nowra last Sunday and “went up my straight on Wednesday the fastest she ever has”. “The last 50 metres may find her out a bit, but I reckon she’ll still run a great race.”
Just Terms has drawn box 1 and is rated a $9 chance on TAB’s fixed odds market.
“I much prefer her ‘inside’. She’s not a ‘fence crasher’ but likes to get on the rails,” Lord added.
Just Terms arrived at Anthony Azzopardi’s Rowsley property on Thursday for her second Topgun Stayers tilt and Lord says, “I wouldn’t send her to anyone else”.
In fact, Just Terms was under Azzopardi’s tutelage during two separate Victorian campaigns from November last year to May this year – including victory in the G1 Zoom Top, third in the G1 Bold Trease, third in the G1 Fanta Bale Super Stayers and seventh in the G1 Sandown Cup.
So, what makes her a super stayer?
“Just her temperament, it plays a big part in any dog,” Lord said. “You wouldn’t know she’s in the kennels; she’s a really friendly dog and always happy and relaxed. And she’s a good chaser; I believe champions are just ‘born’.”
Owned by Lord’s daughter Grace, 20 – a property manager of a LJ Hooker real estate agency in Canberra – Just Terms (Jun ’17 Barcia Bale x Kerrigan Bale) has won 19 races, with 15 seconds and 11 thirds, from 60 starts. Her stakes total $266,010.
She’s only started 10 times since late May, due to a bout of canine gastro enteritis, and Lord says the Topgun Stayers and another crack at the Bold Trease and Australian Cup Carnival will be her last preparation.
Topgun night is the second leg of Victorian greyhound racing’s first ever Metropolitan Festival of Racing, which will see almost $2 million in prize money distributed across five race meetings at The Meadows and Sandown Park during November.
More info: https://www.grv.org.au/metro-festival-of-racing
WATCH: Just Terms (4) streaks away from Here’s Tears (6) in the G1 Zoom Top (725m) at The Meadows in February.
