BRITISH PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK

Breeding students will be aware how often marathon bitches become great broods so it may come as no surprise that the brilliant Roxholme Magic has thrown a cracking litter by Kinloch Brae. It includes Stayers Classic finalist Waltham Magic and the fastest hound over Nottingham’s Derby trip last week, Waltham Queen. The other Monmore nomination goes to puppy Signet Ace who was only 11 spots slower than fastest Gold Cup qualifier Hiya Boyo in the third race of his career.

Saying with the open race theme, King Drake clocked the fastest sprint race so far recorded over Towcester’s 270 metres. At Doncaster another British bred and fastest BGBF Oaks qualifier Acomb Lillian.

Following the domination of veteran Affleck Lady at Central Park, puppy Seaglass Smokey looks to be at the start of a promising career for Patrick Janssens.

There won’t be many times that a 925m winner gets the nomination but that goes to Three Ems following her 14 length win at Romford on Friday. Just for comparison, her 59.14 run was 62 spots outside Riverside Honey’s track record.

Onto the graded and consecutive sub 28.00 A1 wins at Yarmouth have been enough to give Lastfortheroad this week’s call up following a 27.96 run. You’d have to go a fair bit quicker to top the times for a similar distance at Kinsley. That honour this week goes to Cherkezova with a 27.45 run.

Meanwhile at Perry Barr one hound has covered the 480 course quicker than Dolla Wisecrack this year (Ballymac Evan-28.30).

At Newcastle, Alnwick Sal and Chosen Flame clocked identical quickest times of the week, but as a pup, the latter gets the nod. There was a ‘photo finish’ at Harlow too where Indian Trump was the quickest 415m winner by one spot.

It isn’t often that a 29.09 run would be good enough to represent Sheffield, but slow tracks and a lack of opens were good enough for Geelo Buster. A 29.29 got the job done for Ardrath Albert over the similar trip at Hove. The clock has hardly been fizzing at Sunderland either but Rafferty gets the nod as the quickest A1 winner of the week. You could write a similar introduction to the Swindon selection, who sounds as though he be acquainted with the Sunderland runner, Magee.

Sometimes times don’t tell the story. A 45.75 wouldn’t win many Golden Jackets but sometimes the times are irrelevant. Rise Above was one of the four Track Champions at Crayford on Saturday. The 714m decider completed a four-timer, which began over 380m and followed a fruitless UK career to date of 20 straight losses.

Henlow’s British bred Agincourt Xena was not only the quickest over four bends in the last week, her racing record now shows four wins and two seconds from seven races.

Finally – it was back in October 2018 when Nametab Coco picked up his first maiden open for Seamus Cahill. She even ran Queen Beyonce to under three lengths. Roll on 22 months and the near veteran has just clocked the fastest 435m time seen at Pelaw Grange in four years.