Ireland is enduring a hot weather spell every bit as testing as England. It doesn’t stop you training greyhounds, it just makes the days a bit longer.
We are down the kennel at 6.30am to take advantage of the cool and get the dogs out for the first time.
I like to get the dogs galloped early, again to avoid the heat. But that needs a good watering to make it safe.
The day continues as normal with a lull in the middle of the day. We put them out for the last time at about 9.30pm and I also have to water the gallop again.
It is normally around 11.30pm before we get back to the house and the cycle starts again.
I know a lot of trainers in England don’t gallop their dogs. Given the amount of racing over there, it probably isn’t necessary.
But it is an important part of how we do things and of course we always have the tracks for private trials.
The net result is that our dogs generally race less in their careers. Although he was retired earlier than we wanted, Clares Rocket only had 35 races (23 wins and five seconds). Perhaps our busiest dog has been Clonbrien Hero with 40 races (21 wins, 7 seconds).
We have three runners in Saturday’s Boylesports Champion Stakes Final.
They all finished second in the qualifiers and they have the inside three boxes in the final.
The draw isn’t idea for our three. If Clonbrien Hero breaks well from one, I can see him moving to middle and taking Clonbrien Prince’s ground.
Prince and Ballydoyle Flash our other runner are both lightly raced and were really entered for the competition to get more experience of Shelbourne Park.
Despite that, of the trio, I think Flash has the best chance. He was very unlucky in the heats. He showed good early to get on the inside of Frisky Luck at the second bend but although he is seeded wide, Frisky Luck stayed very close to the rail.
Flash had to check around the back of him, went back to fourth place but ran on brilliantly to only be beaten three quarters of a length.
Given how much early pace he has, I would say Frisky Luck is the one we all have to beat, but we have a decent chance.
We also have runners at Cork at the weekend including five pups in the unraced stake.
Obviously they are all relatively unknown but some are more forward than others.
I particularly like Newinn Lester (Tullymurry Act-Market Glory, Aug 16). He is older than the others, but had a few problems with metacarpals. If I had to name our ‘most exciting youngster’ at present, it would probably be him.
But Riverside Maui is also an August pup, from a very good litter and with bags of potential.
We also have the fastest qualifier in the Greyhound & Petworld A1 stake with Nitro Notorious.
It is wonderful to see him running well again. He had a horrible shoulder injury, at one stage I thought he had broken a front leg, and I was never confident that we would get him back to this level again.
