The kennel is obviously buzzing this morning after getting three through to next week’s Boylesports Irish Derby Final. I normally have a nap on the way back from Shelbourne but for some reason I couldn’t sleep last night – yet it was still the quickest journey home ever.
There are all sorts of feelings today. When you have been in the business for as many years as I have, you tend to prepare yourself for disappointment, and it is lovely when it all goes right. In each of the rounds we have lost runners and I would have settled for getting one of our three through last night. To get all of them into the final is way beyond my dreams. I have never led a dog around in an Irish Derby Final before and I am looking forward to it. Timmy led our last finalist Cabra Buck and he will have Sidarian Pearl, Nicky will take Rural Hawaii, and I will lead Sonic, as I have in every round. I worked out that unless we had three in the final I wasn’t going to get the chance to lead one!
To have any runner in there after the dogs we have lost through injury is way beyond anything I could have hoped for. Top dogs are not easy to find. And no – they aren’t just bought in. Just to get this thing out of the way, Sidarian Pearl, was as close to that as any, but she was whelped here, was given to her dam’s breeder and then was bought back into the kennel by the Sidarian boys when she reached the track. Rural Hawaii was whelped down here, I trained his dam for Helen O’Dwyer, who is a director at Clonmel and from dog racing all her life. As for Sonic, he was bred by Pat Moloney who arrived at the kennel in a old Transit van. The pup was clearly very good and we had several owners make good offers for him. But it was Pat’s dream to own and breed a dog like Sonic and he turned all the offers down. Pat is a proper dog man from true greyhound grass roots. Yes we do have owners prepared to buy good dogs, but Sidarian Vega and Clares Rocket as examples, both cost seven thousand, which I think was reasonable. I don’t want €30-€40,000 dogs in the kennel, they bring too much pressure.
As for the draw 1) Holycross Leah, 2) Sidarian Pearl, 3) Ballymac Matt, 4) Sonic M 5) Escapism W, 6) Rural Hawaii W – I am happy enough with it. I would have preferred Sidarian Pearl in one because I think she could have a bumping match with Holycross Leah who likes to move towards the middle. The other two appear very well drawn.
As far as I can see this morning, all the dogs came off sound. Sonic is a bit tired, but he is still a young dog. Although we are excited we will work to a proven routine this week. When it comes to finals, you name it, I have made every mistake in the past. That would include being too frightened to do anything with them and they come out too fresh on the night. We will prepare the gallop and try to cover every eventuality, but it it goes wrong, so be it. All I ever want is for the dogs to perform on the night.
If there is a better dog in the race on the night – that’s dog racing.
