For a man who has three Irish Derby wins, five Laurels, three Produce Stakes blah blah blah. . . to his name, Graham Holland’s Irish St.Leger record is – by his extraordinary standards, ‘ordinary’. His sole winner was Clonbrien Hero back in 2017.
However . . . . the Englishman has a double chance of doubling his Leger haul at ten to nine at Limerick on Saturday night as Swords Rex and Clonbrien Treaty line up as 7-4 joint favourites.
Huge thanks to Nicky Holland – ‘ferry lagged’ from a trip to Nottingham on Monday for her thoughts on the big race sponsored for the first time by Willwego.com.
Betting: 7-4 Clonbrien Treaty, Swords Rex, 4-1 Sober Glory, 6-1 Mr Chelm, 16-1 Ballinabola Una, Beepers Lariat.
All photos: Brendan Gleeson
With so many tracks struggling for dogs, Doncaster is one of the few bucking the trend, both graded and for their opens.
Assistant RM Graham Banks said: “It wasn’t always like this. We had a spell where we were hardly getting any entries. But Steve Gray arrived and put a proposal to Mr Watson for an open race schedule and it’s been a huge success.
“There have been quite a few two-run small competitions and many of them were oversubscribed. So, for Saturday, including the deciders of the Cat 3 races, we have ten opens supporting the British Bred Leger Final.
“Just as important, while lots of tracks are filling their opens with their own dogs, we have had a very good outside entry.”
That surplus of dogs has seen Doncaster awarded a fifth meeting to their schedule, a Tuesday morning. That will continue until the end of the year when the fifth meeting becomes a permanent fixture.
Although the Stainforth venue loses a Monday meeting, it switches to the afternoon, the big gain is the switching of the Saturday afternoons to Saturday nights where they expect to stage open races on RPGTV (under its new name!).
It has been suggested that Doncaster will also cover at least one of the Askern fixtures, until the neighbouring track eventually re-opens, probably in late spring.
Graham said: “I don’t think dogs will be a problem. We are just awaiting for a licence to be granted for Vicki Clark, who worked for Elaine and Sean (Parker) for many years. She will have a kennel for 44 dogs on site at the other side of the track. We also have a list of trainers waiting to come here.”
Graham’s view on the track’s British Bred Leger Final.
Dr Louise Powell, the writer and broadcaster has been in touch for assistance in tracking down greyhound folk with memories of racing in the North East.
The full explanation can be found in the follow press release.
The provisional Christmas and New Year schedule for the four Henlow Racing tracks:
Bradys Bullet produced a 44.31 trial for Hove’s 740 metres in a solo trial on Thursday night.
The Ladbrokes Puppy Derby winner was five spots faster than Ower Smasher in the George Curtis/Ballyregan Bob Memorial trialstake and 20 spots quicker than the same hound’s fastest open race time for 2023.
There was only one spot difference between local middle distance stars Hollow Man and Cochise who both trialled over the 515m course 30.07/30.06.
