Jim Daly has enjoyed his first month as a Crayford trainer despite a return trip that can take between four and five hours from his base near Wisbech.
He said: “Myself and Matt, who works for me, have been sharing the driving, I do the trip probably three times a week and he does a couple. On a good run it is two hours, on a bad day, two and a half. Fortunately the kenneling times mean we miss the worst of the traffic. It has taken longer than I expected to get the dogs graded but we are getting there.
“We have 30 already on the card, another 30 still qualifying of being schooled and another 30 still in the paddocks. It is quite a young kennel and we are still building.
“We don’t expect to get many new owners from the area where we are based, but on the other hand, we are able to offer rearing facilities for the owners who want to buy young pups and see them come through.
“We also have around 130 people in syndicates. The syndicates are a bit of a loss-leader at this stage but they get people involved and we have another eight young dogs arriving from Ireland this week.”
So if the travelling is the downside, what are the benefits of the switch from Yarmouth?
Jim replied: “The whole operation is very well organised, something we noticed when we pulled up with our first trialists. We are used to big queues for kenneling and lots of waiting around, but it is just so slick.
“Also because all the meetings are broadcast in some form or another, I have seen every race in which we had a runner.
“And of course the financial benefits are enormous. Even within the first month we can see a huge difference. Over time that extra revenue will enable us to run the whole operation in a more efficient way.”
And the winners have already started flowing. The star of the kennel is Bellmore Lodge who found 12 spots between his first four races and won all of them (A5-A2).
Jim says: “Look out too for Silvervew Bullseye. We did a deal with Ian and Toni Tungatt for five of their pups out of their Silverview bitches and Bullseye, who is a 35kg pup, has real ability.”
