Why the bookies drive me mad

Travelling is one of the worst parts of the job, but it has been made worse by demands of the betting industry.

A good example was on Tuesday with the televised meeting at Sheffield.

There was a time when we would set off mid afternoon and probably allow three hours for the trip to Sheffield.

On Tuesday, the first race was 6.38pm to fit in with the betting shops and so we had to leave early.

We had two major traffic jams en route – all the caravans were on the roads after Easter – and I was getting more and more fraught in case we weren’t there in time for the first race where we had a runner.

I hate sat-navs and was trying to plot alternate routes on an iPad. Thankfully we made it on time and all four of our runners won which was brilliant.

But the stress of it all only really hit me on the drive home. I felt absolutely shattered.

Okay – you could say it is all part of the job, but what irritates me is that we were at the beck and call of the betting industry who would have made a lot of money on the night, and some of those companies are just leeches on the industry.

Take Betfair. I once calculated that they probably make £1m a week profit from greyhound racing. Calculate the figures yourself, by looking at the markets.

Yet they don’t pay into the BGRF which has fallen to roughly half of the £13m that it once was.

I haven’t ruled out running Blue Moment in the Derby, despite his lapse in concentration at Sittingbourne.

He ran ever so well at Towcester next time out but his owners Myles Anderton and Steve Murphy had already decided that they would like to sell him on and find a younger dog.

He is a lovely dog in the kennel, and I didn’t want to lose him, so I decided to buy him for my wife Sarah.

Myles and Steve were very decent over the price and if Blue Moment does go on and win a category one or two event, they will be entitled to some of the prize money.

I decided not to enter for the Scottish Derby. It is a huge ordeal to race there and I didn’t really have a suitable runner for it.

I would quite often enter runners for events with doubts that we could win them, but with realistic hopes that we should make the final and take our chance.

But you don’t want to be travelling from Suffolk to Glasgow unless you have a live contender.

Instead, we are looking ahead to the Arc at Swindon. The day after my four winners at Sheffield, we sent four to Swindon and they all finished second!

We also trialled a couple who went well and fingers crossed we should have six or seven entered.

In the meantime we have the Super Sprint at Henlow and I have entered Aero Babooshka who won the Mini Derby last weekend.

She loves the track and has already won sprints there so you never know!

It is great to be leading the Trainers Championship though it isn’t the number of winners that most pleases me – 93 in 97 days, but the percentages.

It just answers those ‘knockers’ who try to make a point about how many runners we have.

We are currently on 37%, though I don’t claim the credit for that – as always, it is down to the dogs.

We have a lot of natural winners in the kennel. Swift Whirlwind has won six of his last seven, Cloudbursting has won five of his last seven, Blue Moment has won six of his last nine and of course, the real dog in form, Billys Bullet.

I was thrilled with his 660m track record at Sheffield. It was a very good clock, held by Ballymac Eske, and Billy broke it by four lengths in a time a full second faster than the Three Steps To Victory Final.

The long term plan with him is the Regency at Hove where I expect he will come up against his litter brother Touch Tackle. I thought they might have met at Sheffield but Jim (Daly) decided to go for the 720m open.

Billy likes the track and won a competition there for Dean (Childs), but it could be a cracker if the likes of Millwards Teddy and Roxholme Dream are entered.