Nobody loves an inter-track more than Henlow who once rode a coach and horses through the rules to enable to
‘Slavan’ Mellor
the likes of Derby runner-up Night Trooper to appear in their team – writes Floyd Amphlett.
After watching Trooper land an A1 at something like 1-12f, they duly landed the National Inter-track Championship at the old Wembley Stadium and held a party akin to an Irish hooley on streroids.
Thanks to the change in the rules, the Bedfordshire tracks now have a chance to compete in this year’s BAGS/SIS Track Championship. The qualifying round is at Sheffield next Tuesday and about a dozen runners were shipped up the M1 on Wednesday morning for trials.
The racing manager at the time of the Wembley triumph was David ‘Mourinho’ Smith. Formulating tactics this time around is Paul ‘Avran Grant’ Mellor. Unsurprisingly, the West Ham fan is keen to ditch his reputation for inter-track mediocrity.
“After next week, they’ll be calling me the ‘Slaven Bilic’ of graders” he promised – perhaps a touch optimistically.
Henlow are holding open the closing date for Sunday’s opens until Thursday noon.
Mellor said: “We have a dual distance competition with 16 entries already in, so we only need a couple, and an 18 runner 550 competition where we are still five short. Beyond that it is ‘ones or twos’ needed in about five or six races over various distances.”
