“What a fantastic set of finals we have lined up” concluded Perry Barr Racing Manager Martin Seal following the semi finals of the ARC St.Leger, M Lambe Construction Birmingham Cup plus supporting puppy and sprint qualifiers on Thursday night writes Floyd Amphlett.
The main event was ‘the stayers classic’ where Night Time Danny continued his domination of the event – and punters – with a third consecutive victory in the event. But with all three qualifying races being won within five spots of each other, including a fifth-to-first FON for Space Jet, punters are barely wiser as to the eventual winner.
Seal said: “We have six greyhounds in absolute top nick. There are three potential leaders and three needing to come off the pace. The draw has worked out pretty well for everyone and it is virtually impossible to call the final.
“I think the inside four will all be edging in and given the size of Night Time Danny and with a slow breaker on his inside, I think he should get a decent run and is possibly the one to beat. He broke the track record at Towcester out of four, so I don’t think it will be an issue for him. But it really is too close to call. We looked guaranteed an exciting final.”
Martin selected five winners from his 11 selections (published yesterday): 4-7, 5-4, 9-4, 5-2 and 4-1.
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The Birmingham Cup semis were dominated by the sizzling 28.08 run by Forest Gold, the fastest 480 in six years (minus two days). But the grader doesn’t see the final as any sort of ‘penalty kick’ for Kevin Hutton’s powerful black.
He said: “I was expecting Forest Gold to win, but I didn’t see that time coming!
“The way I see it, we have a case of ‘who leads?’ and while I am not saying that it won’t be Forest Gold, it isn’t inevitable. Havana Class didn’t break last night but still led to the bend. In my view, if he does trap as well as he did in the Laurels, I think he has more early pace than Forest Gold and he will definitely move inwards on the run-up.
“Once again another very high class field and you cannot rule any of them out of it. To be quite honest, I am surprised and pleased to see Coolavanny Kyser in there. We saw in the Laurels how quick he is, but he was quite out of form and I was surprised Mark (Wallis) entered him. I was in two minds whether to accept him, but as always Mark knows what he is doing.”
Patrick Janssens unveiled a future star in the January puppy Crossfield Dusty who blized the 275m course in the heats of the ARC Dash.
Martin Seal said: “It was an outstanding run. Horseshoe Ping’s track record of 15.81 has stood since 2007 and this was the second quickest run ever. That is some achievement by a novice.”
The ARC Puppy Stake also saw a fabulous run from a puppy, in this case, Chris Fereday’s October youngster Droopys Starlet. The diminutive black romped up by almost seven lengths in 28.20.
Seal said: “It was a fabulous run but there is less between the heat winners than the clock suggests. Trumps Benefit ran a terrific race to overcome trouble or would have gone considerably quicker.”
