LUKE’S A MISSILE scored arguably his best win for the season in Hobart last night to take out the M A Morgan Stakes over 461 metres.
The Allan Clark-trained dog was slowly away from box and settled just worse than midfield while Casso Mac George led clearly and held a handy lead at the first turn.
But Luke’s A Missile (Path To Power-Ebony Esprit) burrowed along the rails to edge into the contest and had the leader in his sights turning for home.
He powered home and grabbed victory in the last stride over Casso Mac George with Sitka a length astern.
It was the dog’s third win from four starts in the space of three weeks and it was definitely worthy of a Morgan Stakes winner as the race is named in honour of a man who made greyhound racing his life.
Michael Arthur (M.A.) Morgan is widely regarded nationally as one of the founding fathers of greyhound racing in Tasmania, and one of the greatest administrators the sport has known.
He was on the original committee of the White City Speed Coursing Club, which became the Launceston Greyhound Racing Club.
Morgan moved south to Hobart where he believed greater prospects lay in the state’s capital.
He managed to mould the Hobart Club into the premier club in Australia.
Morgan was the strength of the HGRC and he imposed his authority on the Club so that foul play had little chance of surviving under his leadership.
For most of his 33 years in office he was considered as a self-imposed judge, jury and executioner.
When he resigned because of ill health in October 1967 aged 62 years he had left his legacy on one of the greatest sporting clubs in Australia.
For nine consecutive years in 1953, the Hobart Club distributed more prize money than any other club in Australia and the Hobart Thousand was always the lure for top quality racing and large public patronage.
Until 1965 the race was run as a handicap, with Morgan having sole discretion.
His dream race, known by all simply as “the Thousand”, has continued through the god times and the turbulence encountered by the HGRC over the years, right to the present day, where it is now a national Group 1 race with a first prize of $50,000.
Each year the M A Morgan stakes is run out of respect for the man who dedicated his life to greyhound racing.