Golfing great Elliott Booth enjoying harness racing success with new trainer

He's also been a successful harness racing owner-breeder for many years and recently made another good selection when he needed to find a new trainer for his four-year-old mare Iden Gorgeous.

Although he didn't even know him, he chose Conor Crook.

The young Beauty Point trainer has since guided Iden Gorgeous to five wins from five starts, the most recent a fairly soft victory in the Rating 50-54 Pace at Mowbray on Friday night.

Booth, recently turned 79 and a former player on the world seniors' golf tour, had marked Iden Gorgeous for the breeding barn later this year - but may now be having second thoughts.

The win gave Crook an early training double and driving treble.

He also won with his recent stable addition Sports Candy who outclassed her rivals in the Rating 55-64 Pace and led all the way on Keep Playing for Ben Yole in the Rating 35/B Pace.

Yole brought up his own early double when former Queenslander Guido Da Siena produced a barnstorming finish to win the Rating 50/B Pace at his Tasmanian debut.

Six greyhounds will get the chance to race for more than $18,000 in stakemoney in Hobart next week thanks to a lucky draw.

The field for the second running of the Shane Yates Memorial Cup was to have been decided by four heats on Thursday night.

However, on a disastrous night marred by continual problems with the lure, only one heat was completed with the winner Highland Wonder and runner-up Twisted Reality advancing to the final.

The other six finalists were decided by draw, two from each remaining heat.

Those to go through were Don't Star Now and Pages Creek from heat 2, Quick Joey Small and Dashing George from heat 3 and Blazing Arrow and Classy Lady from heat 4.

Tah Liam, who finished third in the completed heat, and Highland Fame, drawn from heat 2, were named as reserves.

First prizemoney for next week's final, named in memory of racecaller and sporting great Shane Yates, is $11,960 with the race worth $18,260 in total.

A problem with the lure also caused a no-race the previous week and surfaced again at last Saturday's trials.

However it obviously wasn't rectified because there were another two no-races on Thursday night before stewards consulted with trainers and, in the interest of the greyhounds' safety, a decision was taken to abandon the final four races.

Greyhound racing manager Peter Hayes said he hadn't been informed of the exact nature of the problem but believed it had now been addressed as Tasracing put out an industry notice on Friday stating that Saturday's trials would go ahead as usual with free entry.

Draw for the Shane Yates Memorial Cup final -

1 Quick Joey Small, 2 Dashing George, 3 Twisted Reality, 4 Blazing Arrow, 5 Don't Star Now, 6 Highland Wonder, 7 Pages Creek, 8 Classy Lady. Res: Tah Liam, Highland Fame.

Trainer Todd Rattray is not expecting too much from stable star Harjeet when he returns from a long spell in Hobart on Sunday night.

The winner of multiple feature races including the Easter Cup and Tassie Golden Apple will be having his first start for almost 10 months in the Free-For-All over 2090m.

"His work has been pretty reasonable - as good as before he left (for New South Wales)," Rattray told the Tasracing web site.

"But he goes straight into a free-for-all and he'll probably want a couple of runs to race against horses that are going good and running good times.

"He'd need to be on top of his game."

Rattray said if Harjeet regained his best form he could return to his brother James' stable in Sydney.

"We know he can go good when he's right." the trainer said.

"We would consider nominating for the Inter-Dominion but he'd have to be going as good as hehas."

Harjeet spent almost a year in NSW and won twice at Menangle.

His rivals on Sunday night include Tasmania Cup winner The Shallows and Victorian visitor Yorkshire.