Rab McNair is hoping that a decent performance from Warzone Tom in the Ladbrokes Gold Collar will help cement a top six place for wife Liz in the 2021 Trainers Championship.
The Kent based kennel finished in third place for the last two years but a series of breeding disasters and injuries has seen the kennel reduced to just eight runners, half of which are Irish purchases, and the kennel currently occupy sixth place on the table.
Warzone Tom, who has the fastest and joint second fastest clocks this year over Crayford’s Gold Collar course, looks the likely favourite for the Cat One event, though Rab would be the first to admit though that the former Towcester 500m record holder (29.08) has kept him on his toes.
He said: “No matter how many years you’ve been training greyhounds, every day is a school day. I’ve made some big mistakes in handling Warzone Tom. It might be because I have become so used to handling dogs we have reared here, and knowing all about them, that I became complacent.
“It has become increasingly obvious to me that Warzone Tom is a dog who has benefited from a bit of switching around. In fact, when I finally worked him out, and sent him to Crayford without a trial, there would have been a lot of folk thinking I’d lost the plot. But he took off.
“You end up feeling such an idiot that you didn’t spot these things before. But I think I’d just got lazy thinking the dog would just do as I expected. I do expect him to go very well at Crayford, but being the sort of track it is, if you get behind the wrong dogs at the wrong time you are always beatable.
“I haven’t had many runners there in a while but as someone who moans about how trainers are treated, I have to say Crayford treat us like kings. There is a fabulous full English breakfast for the Saturday morning meetings. Its great to feel appreciated.”
Another three members of the team are due to contest the GAIN Nutrition Sovereign Stakes at Towcester which starts on Sunday.
Rab said: “We’ll be taking Havana Class, King Bruno and King Sam. They are all in great form but you can guarantee that the competition will be very tough.
“In my view there are three tracks, Towcester, Monmore and Perry Barr, which because of their central locations, always have a very high quality entry from all over the country. Turn up at them and you’ll see Jimmy Wright taking on Seamus Cahill. That is how it should be.
“I had made plans to run those three in the Classic at Sunderland and I heard there was all sorts of slagging of the southern trainers on RPGTV for not taking part. But you would have to trial and then travel up there for three races for £6,500? Those days are gone.
“I saw the piece that you did with Patrick Janssens about managing the number of dogs that you have and not going racing for the sake of it and he is a million percent right.”
Having seen so many bitches fail to conceive during late 2019 and 2020, the McNair British bred campaign has come to a shuddering halt.
He currently has three Irish bred youngsters who have just started schooling, while his oldest pups in the paddocks are ten months old by King Sheeran out of King Danni.
Rab said: “We’ve had to separate them. Last week a fox made the mistake of getting into the paddock and it all kicked off.
“We also have a younger litter by Hiya Butt out of Queen Anna. When she went for the mating I said to Richard, ‘this is the second time he has seen her arse. The first time was in the National Sprint Final’.”
The most interesting of the new racers is the young bitch Havana Bale Out who was beaten on debut in a maiden open at Towcester on Sunday.
Rab said: “It was the first race of her life and she is at the stage that she can only learn by experience. But she has loads of ability and I am hoping she gets it right this weekend.”
