Coolavanny Frank (Milldean Panther-Lavey Maeve, Jul 14) took his career record to ‘four unbeaten’ with victory in the fastest semi final of the British Greyhound Forum Sprint at Henlow on Sunday night.
The Mark Lowther owned, Derek Law trained black, who began his racing career with two sprint wins at Drumbo Park, went to the red box at 1-3f following a flying first round run of 16.45 for Henlow’s 277m. He again looked a class apart with a near five length win over Russanda Rubin (T4 5-1) and Hare Ruffler (T3 33-1) in a time of 16.42.
The second semi looked much more competitive on paper, and proved similarly tough on sand.
The layers fancied another red success and made Trapstyle Jet the 7-4f. But the race would develop into a buckle between Ernie Gaskin’s 8-1 chance Special Guvna (Archaton Pine-Special Liberty, Oct 13) in orange and Richard Devenish’s 9-4 chance Mac Foiche (Ballymac Vic-Waspinajar, Feb 14) in white. They were, literally inseparable when crossing the line in 16.80 with Castell Henry (T3 5-2) in third.
Draw for the final 1) Coolavanny Frank, 2) Special Guvna, 3) Russanda Rubin, 4) Hare Ruffler, 5) Castell Henry, 6) Mac Foiche (M).
Racing manager Paul Mellor said: “Coolavanny Frank is the obvious one for the final, and that became even more obvious after the draw. The semi looked an even better run than the time suggested (the track record is 16.26) but the track has been running well for the first two or three races but has been levelling out as the meeting wears on.”
