Heather Dimmock’s Donation (Droopys Cain-Delightful Flyer, Jul 15) produced the performance of the night as SHEFFIELD returned to the open race scene with a bang.

The Yorkshire venue has been relatively quiet on the open race front following a burst of major events in March/April but heats of four separate competitions produced plenty of decent performances on Tuesday night.

The most prestigious of the bunch is the £2,000 Hesley Kennels Northern Oaks and it was appropriate that the stand-out heat was dominated by female trainers. It featured Elaine Parker’s Early Mist (T1 5-2), Carol Weatherall’s Greenhill Gem (T3 6-1) and the striped jacketed Donation who went to traps as the 6-4f . . .

The verdict was a short head and Donation’s winning time of 28.77 (N) was the fastest time of the night. It was only the pup’s fourth race and her third win in a row.

It is a cracking competion with all three winners separated by ten spots and two results going to a short head. Next quickest was the Russ Warren trained Swift Burn (Sh Avatar-Swift Palmer, Jan 15) with a two and a half length win over the veteran Airforce Duchess in 28.83. The other qualifier went to Ted Soppitt’s Calzaghe Jan (Vans Escalade-Zaras Princess, Aug 14) who beat Yahoo Benny by a short black head in 28.97.

Five of the six finalists in the £500 puppy event will be locally trained though it was Crayford’s Droopys Giorgio (Droopys Cain-Droopys Loner, Aug 15) who clocked the fastest time, 28.98 (-10) for 500m.

There was a turn-up in the qualifiers of the 660m Maiden Stayers event where 7-1 shot Geelo Jenga (Kingsmill Messi-Tyrur Ayda, Dec 14) beat odds-on favourite Soars Above by half a length in the fastest qualifier: 39.02 (-10).

Tony McKenna sent out the forecast in the quickest sprint  qualifier as Coney McKenna (Paradise Madison-Kingsmill Honey, May 15) beat Coney Mako in 15.97.

SUNDAYS FINALS

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