Current Trainers Championship leader Patrick Janssens doesn’t enter dogs for competitions without a realistic expectation that they will get into the latter stages. Dog for dog, his team of three is as good as any.
Two of the trio are already Cat 1 winners and Patrick’s sole Friday night runner, Kilara Lion, is the most recent of them.
Patrick said: “I have always thought that the most successful dogs at Nottingham are those who can race the bends, and that is exactly what Lion does as he showed at Yarmouth. He is ideally drawn in red, should hold his position at the first bend and looks huge at 5-1 to win his heat. I see him as a 5-2 chance with Glengar Bale having to get across Swift Lettuce on the run-up.
“I think the 500 metres is just about ideal for him, he stays it well enough. In fact, if there wasn’t a clash, I would probably have run him in the Gold Collar at Crayford.”
Mark Wallis has already talked up the likelihood of trouble in the ninth heat with his runner Hopes Bullet drawn on the inside of Patrick’s Lenson Whelan.
Patrick said: “There is no doubt that Whelan will swerve straight across the track towards the rail. I really hope that he misses his break and tucks in behind the field going to the first bend. He is the sort of dog who can go into the first bend in last and come out of the second bend in third. He can these use his tremendous pace along the backstraight.
“He isn’t a fancied dog, but he ran second in the Steel City Cup and fourth in the East Anglian Derby. He is the kind of dog who can keep qualifying. He had done it all his career.”
Bockos Doomie was ante post Derby favourite earlier in the year (the kennel were on at 50s) and he takes part in the last, and toughest heat of the round, no.16.
Interestingly, the Henlow Puppy Derby/Sussex Cup winner has just six defeats in 26 races, and four of those were at Nottingham, where he has never won.
Patrick said: “I am not too concerned about that. He was a very young dog last year and has improved considerably since then. Unfortunately, the heat draw is horrible. The three wants one and the one wants three. There is a reasonable chance that they could ruin the race for each other, whereas the outside three look perfectly drawn.
“We really need Doomie to clear the one. If he does that I can’t see why he won’t qualify. I am very happy with his preparation. He needed the first trial and improved on it for his second.
“I think he runs a track better every time he goes around it, but he has other qualities too. He is extremely intelligent and will wait for gaps to appear. But he also has a tremendous will to win. In the Sussex Cup Final he was battered as he left the traps, but it seemed to make him even more determined to get to the bend in front. The dog is just a winner.”
While the Whelan and Doomie are battling it out at Nottingham, the kennel have another six runners at Crayford, headed by the country’s highest prize money winner of the year, Skilful Sandie.
While an ante post price of 3-1 to win the Jay & Kay Coach Tours Kent St.Leger might seem too short for some punters, you won’t hear Patrick questioning it. In fact, it is hard not to pick up the confidence in his tone, that the kennel’s top stayer can add the £7,500 decider to the £17,500 she won over the same course and distance in February’s Golden Jacket.
He said: “I think she is the best bitch in the country over the 714 metres at Crayford. I could be wrong, but it is just how I feel. She has come back in great form from her season, and although it would have been nice to get a race into her last weekend, her 27.27 trial for the 380 showed just how well she is in herself.
“There are some other very good greyhounds in there including Peter Harnden’s young bitch, and Roxholme Poppy, though she is four and a half now. I wouldn’t swap Sandy for any of them and I hope and expect her to win on Saturday.”
There are five Janssens runners in the Gold Collar and if forced into picking a first string, he would go for his 77 race campaigner Desperado Dan.
Patrick said: “Only on the basis that he has been there and is proven in this company. In the case of Seaglass Tiger, he is back from a broken hock and isn’t quite the dog he was, which is why he isn’t in the Derby. But he went very well in a trial and seemed to handle the track. Will he get the 540? I don’t know, but you often don’t have to at Crayford.
“Dan and ‘Big John’ are the old guard. We also have three younger types in View King, Doolin Princess and Seaglass Smokey, who have already shown their right to be in here too. Smokey and King have already reached the Champion Stakes Final and Princess won a good class maiden final.”
