A huge deal of effort and sacrifice has gone into the open race Calendar for the second half of the year and no company has tried harder than GVC, via their Ladbrokes Coral tracks – writes Floyd Amphlett.
They had already announced a package of eight Cat 1 competitions and have now filled in the gaps with events over all distances.
GVC’s Ian Smyth said: “Apart from anything else, I was very conscious that Crayford had missed out. With no media contract for the Saturday nights, I simply couldn’t afford to stage meetings at Crayford and had no idea when crowds might be allowed to return. So I had to switch the Guys And Dolls and Cesarewitch to Romford, which was only a temporary plan.
“Ideally, I would have liked to put the J&K Coaches Kent St. Leger and Gold Collar in November, but that would create a clash with the Perry Barr event so they will be run in October. Although that creates a potential clash with the Derby, hopefully there wouldn’t be too many runners who would have been aiming for the Derby, particularly given the reduction in numbers.
“But I would like to stress that the Crayford competitions go ahead, whether or not we are able to race with spectators in the stadium.
“Unfortunately there will be no Trafalgar Cup this year, but we have tried to offset that with a new Category Two puppy event at Hove, which combined with the (Romford) Puppy Cup, means that we have attempted to cover all angles.
“Of course we are really looking forward to the return of open racing at Romford from July 3rd. We will continue to stage them every Friday night. Hopefully it won’t be too long until it is in front of a crowd.”
Sheffield’s Dave Perry was delighted to confirm the running of the Gain Greyhound Nutrition Three Steps To Victory in September.
He said: “The first thing I should say is that there is a big caveat to that, ‘providing we are open to the public’. Obviously that is vital for the competition to take place, but we are delighted that Gain have continued to back the event and we will be running for the same prize money as last year.”
The Yorkshire track have also not ruled out staging a belated GAIN/GTA Trainers Championship meeting.
Perry added: “The sponsors and the GTA are up for it, but it again is subject to us being open, and being able to find a suitable slot in the Calendar. We could be talking about November. There is no immediate rush to bring back minor opens, we have to prioritise our graded strength, but looking forward, we would certainly been considering it, when circumstances allow us to do so.”
Elsewhere, RPGTV have previously confirmed sponsorship of the All England Cup and East Anglian Derby.
The three Cat 1 British bred competitions held last year at Sheffield, Nottingham and Newcastle are also provisionally scheduled to take place at the same tracks.
This is a provisional list with a number of noticeable omissions among the tracks with nothing thus far from Towcester, Doncaster, Swindon and Perry Barr to name but four.
* Subject to stadium being open to public
