“It costs £180 for fill up the van with diesel. The days of running all over the country for cheap open race competitions are over.”
With no graded contract, Rab and Liz McNair have spent the last two decades on raiding parties to various parts of the country from their base in Kent. But Rab believes that the only future for major open race competitions is ‘doubling up’.
On Saturday, they face the comparatively local excusion to Hove – a 170 mile round trip. But in the van, they will have semi finalists in two Cat One competitions and a heat runner in a Cat Two event. If it all goes horribly wrong, they will at least pick up £210 in prize money, of which somewhere near £55 will go in fuel. If all three make their finals, next Saturday will net a minimum of £2,300.
Rab said: “What Entain have done at Hove and coming up at Monmore is spot on. It means that a reasonable sized kennel can maybe send four or five dogs between the two competitions and more than cover their costs. Because without doubling up, these competitions won’t get quality entries. How can you justify traveling with dogs when the local trainers are being paid more to run graders?
“But I think the whole thing needs to be opened up more. We recently had a very good young dog called Fromposttopillar come into the kennel. He was bought with the big puppy race at Sheffield in November in mind. But I was talking to Andy from the racing office the other day and he said he thought the competition would be put back because it clashes with another competition that Towcester want to put on, ahead of their puppy race in December. He said they now hoped to run the puppy competition next spring.
“Why not run it alongside the Three Steps? You would get an even better entry for both.
“There should be more free-for-all and have the tracks compete against each other. If you run two competitions against each other, the trainers can decide for themselves. It could actually work in everyone’s favour because trainers might think they can nick the cheaper event and would then enter dogs that they normally wouldn’t bother with.
“Unless I had an absolutely exceptional dog, running for exceptional prize money, I wouldn’t consider making a single entry for any competition these days.”
As a former flapper whose livelihood was as much about judging the calibre of the opposition as getting the best out of his own runners, McNair has also been forced to change his method of assessment.
He said: “We were always guided by the clock. But the tracks are now so inconsistent that I am trusting times less and less. I’ve had to learn the hard way, but I find myself judging the dogs against each other, rather than trusting times, particularly when you are comparing different nights. The going, and the assessment of going, is just way too inconsistent.”
The McNairs three Hove runners will all be fancied to make their finals.
Rab said: “I was pleasantly surprised by Havana Bale Out and Warzone Tom in the heats. Bale Out hadn’t race since May and put in a tremendous run in the Sussex Cup so I would hope to see her improve on Saturday. Warzone Tom always runs well when he is fresh. He is an experienced dog who knows what the game is all about and is as fast as anything in the country when he is on his game.
“Havana Class doesn’t take to all tracks, he certainly wasn’t a fan of Romford. So this is as much about him getting used to the Hove traps as anything else. The plan is for him to go for the Gold Cup at Monmore. I’m also planning to take Havana Bale Out, Havana Lover and Warzone Tom for the Stayers Classic.”
