Bev Heaton will retain the Belle Vue trainers’ championship regardless of this month’s results as she heads into December with a massive lead.
The Swinton-based trainer has amassed a total of 408 winners in the first eleven months of the year and has an unassailable lead of 145 over her nearest rival Jill Llewellyn and she looks like finishing more than 100 winners up on last year’s total.
The Heaton kennel is Belle Vue’s strongest and have won the title more times than Bev can remember.
She said: “We have 56 graded at the moment with another 20-25 either qualifying or retired dogs waiting to be homed.
“We home nearly all our dogs, at least those that can be re-homed. There is probably one in twenty who can’t be trusted. We had to put one to sleep this summer after he bit my granddaughter.
“There are probably eight who have been injured and we have to wait until they are sound before they leave the kennel.”
Despite a widespread shortage of greyhounds and owners, Bev and husband Dave, are not short of either.
Bev said: “We have some long established owners like Pat Burden, who has about 15 dogs with us, plus Billy and Kevin Gill, no relation, who have been with us for many year.
“But in recent times we have taken on lots of syndicates. The latest is a local amateur football team; I have no idea how many they will bring along to the track.
“We do a 60:40 arrangement with lots of the owners and syndicates, where we keep the 60% and they enjoy the ownership benefits, including collecting the trophies.
“As for the dogs, most come from Ireland. Dave has lots of contacts including people like Liam Dowling and PJ Fahy who send us dogs.”
One for the future?
Bev said: “We have a young pup called Ballymac Power, who hasn’t even qualified yet, but Liam tells us that he should make into a decent dog.”
