Gulf Greyhounds Greyhound of the Week - Blackjack Katon

Blackjack Katon

This week’s recipient of the Greyhound of the Week honors has enjoyed a very successful career covering a period of a 1½ years on the Texas Gulf Coast with a record of 102/18-23-16-14. Weighing in at a small but mighty 55 pounds, Blackjack Katon from K-Rod Kennel showed loads of determination over the last nine days with three consecutive hard fought victories to catch the spotlight.

In the beginning of 2011, Blackjack Katon arrived in the great state of Texas after a few schooling efforts in Wheeling, West Virginia and it did not take long at all to get her paws wet graduating from the maiden class in her second official start on February 18. A steady, successful climb through the grading ladder occurred over the next five months reaching the Gulf’s elite top grade AA in July. Then the road turned bumpy for the daughter of TK Quick Strike – Makin Bakin with wins coming few and far between until February 2012 when Blackjack Katon finally clinched her first top grade victory. From that point forward, Blackjack Katon has remained in grade AA for majority of the time except for three brief appearances in grade A resulting in immediate winning efforts.
The start of this latest crowning achievement began on the final day of August against an outstanding field resembling a `hot box feature` with every greyhound in the race making a solid case to take the winner’s share of the purse including GGP’s co-win leader Kells Wild Bill, Killer Sarah, Hot on Her Tail and kennelmate Ruff Country. To the surprise of many, except for trainer Cindy Unrein and owner Charter Kennel, Inc., Blackjack Katon busted out on top from the #1 rail post post position and stole the show with a front running upset at odds of 5 to 1. Blackjack Katon refused to be caught withstanding constant pressure throughout from Hot on Her Tail crossing the finish line one length in front with a time of 30.53 seconds.

After her upset victory, Blackjack Katon of K-Rod Kennel proved she was `the real deal` scoring back to back victories in the lone top grade AA contest for the special Labor Day matinee performance in race #10. This time around, Blackjack Katon was not as lucky with the post draw starting from the yellow blanketed #6 post and went off at odds of 5 to 1 behind race favorite Atascocita Davy of Libby Racing Kennels, a red hot pup making his grade AA debut winning five out of his eight career starts. With a clean break, Blackjack Katon positioned herself well in third place around the first turn behind early speedballs DLT Traitorsplan of Lingle Kennel and JSK Scatback of Sambade Racing, LLC. Driving steadily down the backstretch, Blackjack Katon moved into the second position around the far turn just two lengths back and now had DLT Traitorsplan in her sights. When it appeared that DLT Traitorsplan was home free, Blackjack Katon kicked things into a higher gear and accelerated to the finish line to win by one length in a time of 30.10 seconds.

Saturday evening’s grade AA tenth race set the stage for Blackjack Katon’s bid for three in a row drawing the #6 post position again and another battle with Hot on Her Tail of D.Q. Williams Kennel. With a fast start, Blackjack Katon put her nose in front with Hot on Her Tail living up to his name literally `hot on her tail`. For every stride of the 550-yard course, Blackjack Katon turned away the constant pressure from her counterpart to win by one determined length in a time of 30.24 seconds.