“Rab!, we’ve won the Owner of the Year for the fourth time in five years”

“That’s great Brendan”

“No, not really. We should have won all five and I’m blaming you.”

“Well **** you then”

 

THE KSS Syndicate are the Coral Owners of the Year for 2018 after another brilliant year with home produced dogs.

King Turbo was the star performer with 281 points alone as the syndicate headed by Brendan Keogh and Simon Senyk finished with a total of 659 points. Second was the Conlon Family (349) followed by the Bruiser Boyz (298)

It is the fourth time the syndicate, headed by Brendan Keogh, has won the title having scooped the award in 2014, 2015 and 2017. Their team of greyhounds amassed a huge 659 points, finishing ahead of the Conlon Family (349) and the Bruiser Boyz (298).

It is now 15 years since the King and Queen of the Scottish independents, Liz and Rab McNair headed south to take over the Kent kennel formerly operated by John Quinn.

It was a life changing moment for the McNairs who instantly bought into a vision of a man who earns his living building and maintaining railways stations.

Rab said: “I was told that Brendan, who I had never heard of, was looking for someone to run his kennel so I thought I would ask Peter Meldrum for a heads-up on the guy. Peter answered the phone and I asked him if he knew Brendan and could he vouch for him.

“He said ‘I do and I can. Would you like to speak to him. I’m at Wimbledon dogs and standing next to him’. I told Brendan I might be interested, and he virtually offered me the job. I said, ‘but you don’t know me’, to which he replied, ‘no, but I have seen the condition of your dogs and if you can get mine to look like that, the job is yours.”

Although Simon Sanek is a partner in the syndicate, he is less involved and Rab simply refers to Brendan as “the Boss”.  But it is a far closer relationship than employer/employee. They live around 50 yards apart on the 30 acre site though Rab sees more of the family than he does of the man himself.

Rab said: “Nearly all our conversations are on the phone. But we’ve watched the family grow up. Whenever we popped round to see Brendan, the kids were there with the TV on. They would hide the controller and I would be made to watch Pepper Pig for hours on end.”

As you might gather from the introduction, the banter with the family, as the Irish might say, “is mighty”.

“Big Dec, Brendan and Tracy’s second son is the worst” mutters Rab darkly, “he keeps threatening me, ‘when I take over you’ll be out on your ear’.

“That’s why young Giselle is our favourite. She comes and sits with Liz and I when she comes home from school. She watches a bit of telly for an hour and has an ice cream before she goes home.”

The success of the operation was nicely summed up a couple of years ago when Brendan was at Clonmel and enquiring whether there were any decent dogs for sale. He was told, ‘we haven’t got anything better here than what you are breeding back at your place.’

So presumably the praise made it back across water?

“You’ve got to be joking” says Rab.”I remember telling Brendan to back one of his dogs at Wimbledon. He had £1,000 at 10-1 on the phone, went to the track, had another £1,000 at 10-1 with David Hood who was running a book for Hills.

“The dog won and I said to Brendan ‘so you had a good night’. His answer was, ‘it was okay, but if you were any kind of trainer you would have told me to have five grand on.”

When he finally gets serious, Rab concedes that his relationship with Brendan goes way beyond ‘professional’.

He says, “They are like our family. No matter what goes wrong, I have never known Brendan be angry or lose his temper. He works very hard and never does anything second best, but he enjoys every moment of life. Liz and I have been living a dream for the last 15 years.”

So what if, one day, Brendan fulfilled his dream and won the English Derby. Surely that would earn at least a pat on the back?

“No chance” says Rab, “because he knows I’d never let him forget it.”