Owners and trainers open race options are about to be extended as Henlow returns to full pre-Covid operations.
Racing manager Martin Race said: “We will be staging two 12-runner ‘monkey’ competitions every Sunday starting on Sunday September 12 with heats over 277m and 550m. The following Sunday, to coincide with the two finals, will be the start of two more competitions over different distances. Then the same every week.
“We are actually re-opening the restaurant and having the bookies back from August 28th, when the opens would have started, but we missed the closing date for the Calendar.”
Like most tracks, Henlow are feeling the pinch in terms of runners, though according to the greyhoundstats.co.uk data, Henlow are one of only seven tracks this week with more than a 100% kennel strength.
Martin said: “We have a few dogs here who are good enough to go open racing but run Henlow better than anywhere. But we do have a very decent top grade too – there are probably only about three dogs that I can’t find a grade for (460-Rail McCoy, 550-Glenvale Tony, Layton Shrek) so they will have the option to go in the opens.”
In Kelli’s own words: “One year, three weeks, 41 lines of form.. trials and races… and Moo Moo gets her first win!!!!!! Whilst there is a will – there is a way! Don’t stop believing …. !!!”
At the other end of the scale are the dogs who, in a previous era, might have been too slow to grade.
The Henlow grading time of 29.40 (29.60 pups) is well over two seconds slower than the regular A1 winners (Tricia Jezabelle won Sunday’s best A1 in 27.39).
But a dog man to his boots, Martin isn’t too upset at the decline in quality.
He cites the case of Makeit Momo, a Mar 19 bitch who narrowly scraped into a sprint grade at Towcester but was soon having to re-qualify and looked destined not to make it as a racer.
She clocked 30.47 in her first trial at Henlow!
Martin said: “Ask Kelli (Windebank). They originally thought that Momo wouldn’t grade and it took her four attempts.
“But I was convinced we could get a win out of her and sure enough she finally won an A9 last week. That’s lovely to see.”
