The race favourite looked the goods in the final of the Future Stars Maiden, shooting off to an early lead before getting caught up with the pack at the first turn.

Fuego fell heavily, breaking his leg and had to be put down after the race.

Maitland Greyhounds publicity officer Fred Robertson said it was a tragic end for the up-and-coming greyhound, which was trained at Londenderry by Luke Azzopardi and had run the fastest time to qualify for the $7000 final.

The winner’s cheques were picked up by a star-studded trio of greyhounds, with Webbie’s Star (22.47) racing away to an easy five-and-a-half length win from Obama Star, followed by Starburst Stumpy in third.

Owner Stuart Gemmell was elated by the win, which will cement Webbie’s Star, trained at St Mary’s by Robert MacMurray, as one to follow in many punters’ minds.

But the $7000 maiden sponsored by Multicam Routing Systems wasn’t the only race to highlight rising stars at Maitland Showground, with a track record smashed in the run before the Future Stars final.

Kay Size laid down a sizzling run of 31.57 over 565m in race seven, smashing the previous record of 31.78 set by Miagi on May 3, 2007.

Robertson said the Reg Kay-trained greyhound was never in doubt, sprinting away to take the win by 10 lengths.

“It was a red hot run,” he said.

“To take 21 hundredths off the record – that’s about three-and-a-quarter lengths – it was unbelievable.

“It (Kay Size) has only had nine starts but you could see it was going to go early – Reg Kay trains some marvellous dogs.”

It was the third record broken at the track this year, while another almost fell earlier in the night when Window Watcher flashed away to win race three in 22.24, missing the mark by 0.06 of a second.

“We’ve had some fast times, exciting racing and terrific efforts by up-and-coming young dogs since they did up the track,” Robertson said.

“The track was absolutely on fire on Thursday and there was a few really good runs before we even got to the final.”