Nottingham enjoyed a successful year in 2015 and that has been reflected in a £50,000 prize money increase which kicked-in in December.
Director Nathan Corden said: “We worked very hard at it and as a result, tote and attendance were both up by around 3.5% and restaurant turnover was up by around 4%.
“The net result was that we were able to put an extra £50K into prize money. It went mainly to the ‘also rans’ who now get paid minimum of £30 with bottom grade win money a minimum of £100.”
The prize money rise coincided with Anna Thompson taking over the trainer’s license, and Nottingham’s largest runner supply, from her father Ron.
He is to return to his first love, training and breeding racehorses, though the rubber-stamping of the licence was pretty much a paperwork exercise.
Anna said: “Dad had the licence when we were racing at Kinsley, but for the last three and a half years, I have been running the kennel at Nottingham. I was his assistant, and he is now mine. He is back with his horses, he has around 35 at the moment including a couple of mares in foal.”
The Thompson canines and equines race from the 99 acre Haggs Wood site in Stainforth.
Anna says: “We have around 110 greyhounds here of which we have about 60 on the racing strength and probably another 15 trialling or in-season.
“The rest are mainly pups. We started breeding ourselves because we ended up buying in so many dogs from Ireland for £500-£600 who couldn’t even grade. We plan to breed around three litters per year and I much prefer it.
“You get so much satisfaction from whelping them down and bringing them through. At the moment we have four litters on the ground, two at 16 months, one at ten months and another at ten weeks.
“We tend to use College Causeway, Montos Mark and have recently used Fear Haribo at stud dogs. Our broods would include Wonder Girl, who has now been retired, Mays Westmead, Fabulous Petra and Mays Trotter.
“They obviously aren’t all world beaters, but we can get them up to A2/A3, then it has been worthwhile.”
Among those currently working their way through the grades, Anna picks three members of the Montos Mark/Wonder Girl litter as being worth following in the coming weeks. The three Haggswoods are ‘Stripes’, ‘Daisey’ and ‘John’.
John has won win from eight races, Stripes has won one from three, and Daisey has 3/9 including a recent A5 victory.
Anna said: “They aren’t two until April and we have taken our time with them so I would expect all three to improve in the coming months.”
The kennel also have open race ambitions having just acquired a couple of decent young Irish open racers.
Anna said: “We only have four owners in the kennel but Larry Marshall and Dave Tams like to own good dogs so fingers crossed we have a couple of decent ones for this year.”
THREE NOTTINGHAM PUPS TO FOLLOW
OSCAR WHISKEY (Droopys Oscar-Droopys Danneel, May 14) trained by Paul White and owned by Mr AJ Clarke & Mr JA Naylor
Beaten in his first two races at the track, he has since trialled in 17.63 (+10) for the Nottingham sprint with a 28.00 (calc) for Monmore’s 480 metres.
BEST JUDGEMENT (Crash-Cornamaddy Daisy) July ’14 – owned and trained by Margaret Roberts. Won an A2 second time out and was narrowly beaten by Swift Paradise in Monday’s puppy final
SALACRES DAVID (Kiowa Sweet Trey-Salacres Gem, Mar 14) Owned by Peter Harnden & Mark Pierrepoint and trained by Peter Harnden. Qualified in 29.77 at Shelbourne. Beaten in his only race but has since trialled in 30.59 over the Colwick 500m.
NOTTINGHAM’S Dog of the Year was Droopys Fellaini (Droopys Scolari-Droopys Panto, Aug ’12 ) trained by Alec Stone and owned Dennis Hackland, Ian Pickard & Alec Stone
NOTTINGHAM’S 2015 Bitch of the Year was Alma Chic (Head Bound-Droopys Alma, Nov 12) trained by Alec Stone and owned by Nicola Freeman
