We are lucky to have two through to Saturday’s Gain 600 Final at Shelbourne Park and both have obvious chances.

You don’t have to be a genius to work out that the draw could hardly have worked out better for Lenson Blinder with Clonbrien Prince on his outside and two dogs who, on all known form, he should be able to dominate to the bend. I thought Prince ran his usual quality race in the semi finals, as shows in his time, but Blinder surprised me.

Dog racing teaches us never to make assumptions and it is a high class field with Droopys Biker also running a great semi final the obvious danger, and also with a great draw. My concerns for Prince is that if he doesn’t get it right at the boxes Skywalker Logan could cut across him on the run to the bend.

Blinder is clearly in the form of his life and the more I see him, the more I wonder whether he would stay 750 yards.

We have eight runners in total on the card including Wolfe who also continues to impress me. He won in 29.39 for the 550 yards last week from five and looks better drawn this time around. He went to the bend in a straight line last week but this should suit him even better. Again, I am not counting chickens, but he must have a very strong chance.

I might normally think about leaving a dog of his calibre on the bed about now in preparation for the English Derby. But he isn’t quite as consistent at the boxes as I would like and hopefully these regular runs should give him the chance to become more reliable.

Away from Dublin we also have a finalist in the Cork Oaks with Clona Dream who is owned by Kevin O’Brien.

On semi final form, she has time to find on Kilmacdonagh who ran very well in the semi finals and has to be respected. In all honesty though, I think the draw worked out better for us than Kieran Lynch’s bitch who would have really loved to have been drawn in red.

But you don’t have to study the formlines  for very long to see that they are six well matched bitches and any of them are capable of winning on the night.

We also have runners at Limerick in the second round of the Con and Annie Kirby Memorial.

Herecomesdahoney has had a shoulder injury and I am just hoping he can qualify on Saturday because he should improve for every race back.

Riverside Leo is a very exciting youngster. He is a July pup by Knockglass Billy out of Adamant Gem and owned by Larry O’Rourke. He has six wins and a second from eight races and although his 28.37 run in the heats was a long way off the fastest time, I was told that he broke the sectional record to the third bend.

He reminds me very much of his sire and I like him a lot. I would be very disappointed if he didn’t produce another good run on Saturday.

There is also an unraced stake supporting the Kirby Memorial and we will have our second runner for Dave Firmager in the first round. He is called Romeo Rumble and is out of one of Dave’s bitches, Fabulous Pin.

I quite like the pup, he is a plucky little dog but has had a few setbacks. It is quite funny because I’ve had to keep making excuses for him who had a bit of sickness and an injury niggle, but at least when the owner has done the training and breeding thing himself, he can appreciate the problems.

Although I have known of Dave for many years, I have only really got to know him recently, and it is good to see a real dog man back on the tracks. We have quite a few English owners in the kennel and they love nothing more than getting on a plane at the weekend and flying over to see their dogs run.

If I wasn’t based in Ireland, I’d probably be doing the same thing myself.

We had a real bonus last week when Clonbrien Swift broke the Clonmel 550 yard track record.

A record is always good, but when it comes from a dog whose career was in doubt, it is a double bonus. Swift, who is a brother to Clonbrien Prince, was reckoned to be at least as good as a pup but he picked up a flexor tendon injury about ten or eleven months ago.

We have really had to work hard on it, but we bought quite an expensive laser a couple of years ago and it has been worth its weight in gold. With that sort of injury, you always expect to find an enlarged tendon even after it has been treated, but you wouldn’t know Swift had had a problem.

He only broke the clock by one spot, but it was only his second race back and he will now be added to our English Derby team.

We have just started schooling the latest Ballydoyle Honey litter and in so many ways, they are remarkably similar to her previous litter by Kinloch Brae.

They are not over big – the dogs just under 70 pounds – and they are quite keen happy pups.

I think they were lucky to get Top Honcho semen for the litter though I am against the idea in principle. Once a dog has died, I don’t think they should use the frozen semen anymore. I realise that unscrupulous stud keepers could keep it secret, though the control stewards could check on older stud dogs every year.

The problem is, why would you take a chance on a young dog like Sidarian Blaze when you can use his sire, Kinloch Brae? Why use Rural Hawaii when it is easier to sell pups by his sire Head Bound?

It just creates stagnation for breeding.