The star of the week has to be Bubbly Inferno who gave a start and a beating to TV Trophy favourite Ballymac Taylor in the Track Bookmakers TV Trophy Final at Oxford setting a new track record of 52.37. It wasn’t the only clock broken on the night with Havana Top Note taking 10 spots off his own 650 record with a 39.19 run.
As expected, the KSS Syndicate’s Kings and Queens continued to dominate the ARC Kent Plate. Of the nine qualifiers to date, they have won eight of them. Ante post favourite (Kent Plate/English Derby) King Memphis took his winning streak to nine with a 29.05 (-10) run.
At Monmore, Untold Dollar had 28.30 and 28.27 trials on his card prior to the PGR Puppy Derby first round where he find life tougher and showed great resilience to qualify. He was the quickest of Saturday’s semi final winners – and also the youngest qualifier – with a 28.27 run.
There was a fabulous night’s racing at Doncaster on Saturday where new fastest times of the year were recorded by: Across The Field (16.75-275m), Wicky Hiker (27.44-450m) and Agile Ange (41.34-661m) – all three of which deserved acknowledgement. But we are going for a 17 month old locally bred pup in her second race, Redbrick Tulip who landed the 450m puppy open in 27.58.
We highlighted the magnificent return to racing of Stuart Ray’s Blackhouse Harry in a feature piece on Friday. However, it would be remiss not to acknowledge the fabulous run from July British bred pup Greenwell Coe – a brother of Greenwell Ovett – when clocking 28.58 on the same card.
Similarly, while we cannot fail to support Dashing Dude with his ninth consecutive win over the Swindon sprint, a mention is entirely deserved for another Bryce runner, the May puppy Baggios Intent with the quickest 471m run of the year, 28.00.
A great, and long overdue result for Kevin Ferguson with Acomb Felix winning the British Breeders Final at Nottingham. In all honesty though, not the performance of the night. That belonged to Coppice Rocket with a 17.54 run for the sprint. Only Bombout Bullet (17.52) and Farneys Trend (17.53) went quicker last year.
Rocket was also in the reckoning for the Sheffield POW with a 15.74 run for the 280m on Sunday, equalling the quickest run this year by Romeo To Victory. However he is overlooked in favour of Farneys Willie with the first sub39.00 run for the 660m of 2024.
Returning to the subject of sprints, 16.00 was only broken four times at Kinsley last year for the 268m, with the quickest run being Castlehill Jim’s 15.91. That barrier was breached for the first time in 2024 last week by puppy Aikins Gift with a 15.95 run.
Harlow was running particularly well on Wednesday with a string of sub 26.60 runs. Quickest of the lot though, with the joint fastest time of the year was Gothic Gwen. The daughter of former Champions Stakes winner clocked Aayamza Express clocked 26.27.
Last week’s prophesy of ‘more to come’ from Never Say No was justified when Seamus Cahill’s home bred switched back to the 500m trip and was the most impressive of Thursday’s open race winners. The 29.44 was recorded on -20 going.
The cancellation of the Springbok hasn’t greatly inhibited Traceys Sydney’s hurdling career. After three official schooling trials and just two races over the jumps, the Barrie O’Sullivan trained exA1/S2 runner landed a Crayford H2 by 12 lengths on Sunday and equalled the fastest time of the year, 23.44.m It was also two spots quicker than his fastest calculated time on the flat.
At Suffolk Downs, puppy Yahoo Megan took her record to 12 wins from 15 races with a 23.56 run for the 388 metres. Only Bettys Jack has gone quicker this year.
Open racing returned to Norfolk neighbours Yarmouth on Saturday where Drumdoit Jack was the quickest winner over the standard at 27.79. But the selection is a 21 month old pup who sounds as though he was named by Del Boy Trotter. Sandra Clayton’s Bonjurno Boy won third time out in 27.89.
Romeo Firebrand has been slightly put in the shade by Romeo brothers, Cypher and Crusade. But the Firmager bred hound produced the best run for Romford’s 400m course last week, 23.91.
Irish Oaks winner Crafty Shivoo was barely out of season when made a ridiculously short price to land Romford’s Golden Sprint. She is now a little over 13 weeks out which makes her 28.81 open race win at Towcester look exceptional. By traditional rule of thumb, there should be more to come until around the 16 week mark. For the notebook!
Port West Storm didn’t manage to get into the first three in her short Irish career but has won three of her last seven at Sunderland and clocked the week’s quickest run over the 450m course, 27.24.
Whisky Copper became the second fastest hound over Valley’s standard trip with a 28.17 open race win on Sunday, just a length outside Ballydorgan Gema’s track record. He has now won four of his last seven in Wales. His best English run is probably a 28.53 open race win at Swindon.
Just loving the Perry Barr top heat graded races, more entertaining than most opens, most weeks. There were two A1s on Saturday, but realistically, the 7.41 was A1* – featuring serial Performers of the Week Swift Prank (13/8), Greenhall Evie (7/2) and defending champ Good Spark (100/30). They were joined by the triple A1 winner Porthall Chief (3/1) and Michael Field’s A2 winner Swizz Star who started as the outsider at 11/2 but was a thoroughly merited winner in the second fastest 480 of the year to date, 28.26.
Something very similar going on at Pelaw Grange where Mucky Buick was last week’s POW following a 25.59 with Tromora Supreme, Killieford Sarah and Blastoff Cassius all in his wake. But puppy Supreme upped the ante this week with a new FOY for the 435m, 25.46.
