I thought we had pretty mixed luck in the Night Of Stars race at Shelbourne last night. We had two winners with Riverside Oscar and Skywalker Rossa who was our only runner that I backed.
I would have loved Ballydoyle Honey to have won on her last track appearance but thought she was unlucky. She actually came out too well and was pinched by the one and three on the run-up and had to drop back to get a run. Along the backstraight she was going to finish last but she put in a great run to grab second.
Clares Rocket got a bit excited as I feared he might, and then had Skywalker Rory to get past. Rory is a St.Leger winner and is not an easy dog to pass. Rocket eventually got past but the winner Burgess Popeye was gone. The important thing was that Rocket came off sound on his wrist and will now be put away for the winter.
Sonic was also beaten for almost the opposite reason to Rocket. Sonic was having his second race back and looked as though his first race might have taken too much out of him. Ideally you want to come into a meeting like Night Of Stars – which is so incredibly competitive – with a dog is battle hardened from competition and therefore fully fit, but not too excitable.
There aren’t too many competitions to look forward to before the end of the year though I hope to have a few runners in the ‘Comerford Cakes’, the Tralee Derby and the Christmas Oaks.
We will see what happens at next year’s English Derby, when and where, and make our plans accordingly. For me, it is between Towcester and Hove. I love Hove as a track but the grandstand is very small and parking is an absolute nightmare. Towcester has none of those problems and would be my first choice.
I have been following the Star’s campaign for permit racing and think it is a good idea. One aspect that hasn’t been brought up is how permit racing encourages young people into the game. My dad was a ‘flapper’ and without being surrounded by the dogs and handling them from a very young age, I doubt I would be doing what I am doing today. The old NGRC rules about kids not being allowed to handle greyhounds are just ridiculous. If the dogs are at home with permit licences, nobody will be able to stop the kids getting involved.
It seems to me that the British and Irish racing authorities are hell bent on doing everything possible to drive people out of the game, and they are succeeding. I had a dog transporter here this week, mine was the only dog on the van. Two years ago, you have struggled to get fitted in. Two years ago you might arrive at Clonmel with a couple of trialists for unrecorded trials and wait an hour. Now you can drive in, have your trials and be gone again.
Our Board is driving people away with their drugs rules and prize money. Nobody wants dogs running on drugs but they are now getting midweek testing for dogs that might have been given an anti-inflammatory the day before but will be clear by the time they are due to race. You can’t feed knacker meat which is driving up the cost of keeping dogs. No wonder so many breeders are getting out of the game.
And its all being done supposedly for the benefit of the UK bookmakers. But it is not as though that system can ever work in Ireland. If you land a big gamble on BAGS in England and it is your livelihood, you could lose your licence. If an Irish guy with a couple of dogs pulls a stroke in the betting shops, what are they going to do about it? If the same guy is only pulling a stroke at his local track he can’t win a lot anyway.
On the prize money side of things, only paying the first three in a race but charging an entry fee encourages owners to withdraw dogs. They look at the card, see they have no chance, work out the diesel, tolls and entry fee and withdraw. They get suspended for a week, but still probably save themselves €30 or €40.
