Great credit to Pape Di Oro (23.80) and Roxys Bullet (35.28) in landing the Silver Maiden and Essex Vase respectively on Friday night at Romford. But in terms of quality performance, Farneys Trend (23.75) edged it for the four bends while New Destiny has to be the top performer. It is ironic that connections know her ideal box is three, but were persuaded not to go for a middle seed for fear she might ruin a race if drawn, as it often likely, the orange jacket. You can guess which box she produced her 34.86 run from!
Monmore’s final preparation for the Ladbrokes Winter Derby (starts next Saturday), took place over the weekend. One of the trialstakes produced a tricast of Cat One winners – with Churchfield Syd beating Coolavanny Shadow and Jonny Whiskers. Surprisingly – perhaps – it wasn’t the quickest of the night. That went to Maxine Locke’s Droopys Eddie with a 28.09 run. A mention too for the two month younger Aero Sacundai who was nine spots slower and is unbeaten in four Monmore races.
At Towcester, Quarteira ran to within two spots of Flashing Willow’s sprint track record when landing the fastest heat of the Bet365 Northamptonshire Sprint. Great credit to the track staff to produce a surface like that at the end of January.
It says something for the faith in which Kevin Hutton has in Rioja Maxi that he included her as part of his Judgement Night team at Perry Barr last April. But a series of setbacks, including a time off in season, meant that when she went to traps for an Oxford Saturday afternoon open, she only had seven more lines of form on her card. Nevertheless, she looked back to her best with an easy 26.76 (-10) win. A second year in the team looks increasingly likely.
Last week’s Doncaster POW Havana Meanie completed his final preparation for Newcastle’s Northern Puppy Derby with the most impressive of the trialstakes. The main event gets underway this Thursday.
Across at Sunderland, all graded fare, but a commanding A1 win for Witton Perfecto. The Sutherst/Lynas bred and trained hound might be turned two and a half but the 27.22 run was only the tenth race of his career.
Completing the North East triangle is Pelaw where POW Mustang Tyson was defending his title. It didn’t go well. Footfield Petal, who was 0:7 since arriving at the track, led at the second bend and won by nearly nine lengths in the fastest time of the night.
Class endures for Clairekeith Remy as he approaches his fourth birthday. Despite being surrounded by younger talent, the multi Cat One finalist shone in the Hove Thursday opens with a 29.32 (-10) run over the standard.
At Swindon, Ballymac Loca and Gagas Merry are enjoying their own private battle over the Swindon stayers trip. It was 1-1 going into Thursday night’s opens before Merry went 2-1 up. Well backed too – as an evens favourite!
Suffolk Downs’ Thursday meeting was abandoned after seven races – though that didn’t stop Bettys Jack was equalling the 388m track record with a 23.32 run. Even allowing for going allowances, he found 51 spots on his previous outing – which he also won!
Colin Wilton’s Sambar Kian produced the best performance seen at Nottingham this week. His 29.85 was assessed as being “+20”. Not sure about that given the A1 was won in 30.52, the A2 in 30.66 and a couple of A3s in 30.60 and 30.72 (+10). Yes – we know “+40” is probably ‘normal’.
Tax You Tonight was an A1 regular for David Mullins at Romford. He had a spell with Luke Morrison at Central Park before joining Paul Vincent on the Harlow graded strength where he is thriving in slightly easier company. That’s two wins from three races with the quickest run of the week, 26.40 (-20) in A2.
Back at Central Park, there were no opens this week with the top action coming from a couple of A1s and an A2 on Saturday evening. We’ve gone for the A2 winner Barnora Kelly whose 29.47 was the quickest run of the week. Just missing out was the speedier of the A1 winners, Heathlawn Willow.
Similarly Perry Barr staged a couple of A1s and a pair of A2s on the same evening. Not only was A2 winner Billis Wizard the quickest, he was considerably the youngest of the quartet.
Without doubt, the hardest decision of the week was choosing between three Doncaster open race winners. Acomb Felix clocked 16.83 for the sprint, Acomb Jasper beat Leighas Dream in 29.51 for the 483m and Innfield Charm won the 661m open in 41.45. The tie-breaker was a sympathy vote for Felix who deserved to be acknowledged in his previous race when clocking a flying 16.76.
While Roxys Bullet made it through the Essex Vase first round, kennelmate Drumdoit Jack was not so fortunate. But the switch did him no harm at all as he bounced back to destroy an A1 field at Yarmouth in comfortably the fastest time of the week, 27.57 (N).
There was only one sub28 run this week over the identical distance at Kinsley this week. In her last four days as a pup, Deelish Lucy saw off an A3 field in 27.92. That’s four wins and two seconds in her last six races for the former Oxford A6 runner.
Defending POW Caraxes was a non-arrival at Sheffield last week and Skywalker Pele nipped in and nabbed his crown. No such issues for Davy McLaughlan’s black this week who extended his recent Owlerton record to four wins and a second in his last five appearances.
When a new track opens – or at least re-opens and with changes – it is hard to validate the quality of the times. The original ‘track record’ for Valley’s 645m was set at 42.33. It has since tumbled by around two seconds. Until Sunday afternoon, it was held by Dubai Kid in 40.57, only for Craig Marston’s hound to knock almost seven lengths off his own clock with a 40.03 run. He won by over 16 lengths at 4/11f. Now that seems a more realistic figure.
There was some very worthy performances at Crayford on Sunday evening. Hurdler Coppice Fox was just 12 spots outside the 540mH record with a 33.69 run while Hopes Paddington held on by a head from a highly strung Savana Lioness to clock 33.47 on the flat. But with the Golden Jacket due to start in just 12 days time, we’ve got to highlight the 44.81 over the eight bend course for Lively Lauren – off a 22.93 split!
