Target Slick became the fourth double centurion of the year when landing his 200th and final race at Newcastle on Wednesday.
The British bred brindle, who celebrated his sixth birthday just three days earlier, began his career with Craig Dawson, hence the prefix, but spent the last three years with Paul Rutherford.
A dual distance type, often over the 640 metre course, Slick covered over 73 miles in races and trials having run his first registered trial on 1 November 2017. To put Slick’s racing longevity into perspective, of the six runners contesting Saturday’s veterans race only Sparta Master was even born (he was six weeks old) when Slick clocked 18.66 for the Newcastle sprint.
Paul Rutherford said: “He was always a really genuine little dog; he just lacked early and had to always come through the field. But he still finished in the first two in over 80 races. We will be looking to re-home him ourselves, we re-home all our own dogs. We have three retired ones in the kennel already but Slick has earned his retirement.”
There is perhaps one further interesting angle and it is Slick’s breeding. The son of Droopys Nidge and Keith Allsop’s Slick Sapphire is a half brother to one of the most durable open race stayers of recent years, Goldies Hotspur.
