Its been a fantastic start to the year. I think this is the quickest that we have ever reached 50 open race winners and we have a decent lead in the trainer’s championship.
I think there are several reasons for this. The first is the opening of Towcester which has been a huge boost for the kennel.
We have 25 more dogs than at our lowest point after the closure of Walthamstow and most of the extra dogs have owners, rather than being dogs that were left us.
We always have a small number of dogs, less than half a dozen, who have been sent over by Irish breeders, looking for new owners.
The recent enforcement of EC rules by the Irish authorities have made life a lot more difficult to sell dogs.
By the time the dogs have had their rabies jabs, been sent over and run their qualifying trials, you could be talking about six weeks, and that is before you have sourced the dogs.
When a potential new owner phones, he doesn’t want to be kept waiting, so it is always useful to have decent young dogs who are already over here and qualified.
This seems to be a great opportunity for British breeding if breeders can only take advantage of it.
The other reason that I think we do well in the trainer championship is because we have a wide range of dogs, sprinters to stayers and even the occasional hurdler.
The point is the trainers championship are heavily based towards finals, winning them or even getting finalists. You can’t possibly win the competition over a year just with minor open race wins.
No complaints about being beaten in the Henlow Gold Cup Final with our two runners. Congratulations to Kevin (Hutton) on winning it with his outsider.
The track was heavily biased towards the outside and we had railers. But what can you do? The problem was brought on by the weather. It had rained day and night. It wasn’t anything that the track did wrong. Kevin had the same problem with his other runner, Airport Captain.
If I had had a wide runner, I wouldn’t be complaining. That’s racing.
Likewise, no complaints about Black Francis in the Golden Jacket. I thought he ran entirely to form. I thought he was good enough to reach the final, and that is exactly what he did.
Wiki Waki Woo ran brilliantly well for Angie and the connections and won in a fast time.
I was delighted that Jimmy Nailed On ran so well to win the Bussey Final for the fourth year in a row for us. He was 12-1 ante post and I told anyone who would listen that he was great value.
I think he could progress onto take the place eventually of dogs like Adageo Bob and Blackstone Marco.
We have a small group who must be nearing the end of their careers.
If the top open racers can reach 60-70 opens, it is the equivalent of nearly 100 races for a grader because of all the trials they run.
As a trainer, you know when a dog has had enough. Physically or mentally, he just looks as though he isn’t enjoying it. That is the time to say ‘enough’.
We hope to trial Greyhound of the Year Cornamaddy Jumbo within a couple of weeks.
He is full of himself mentally and will be absolutely up for a return to racing. What we don’t know is whether his injury has taken too much out of him physically.
We will trial him and then make a decision.
I am really looking forward to the Golden Sprint and expect to enter five or six runners.
Having Aero Nemesis back in the kennel is a big boost. I really thought we could win the Derby with him last year.
He went out in the semis having led to the third. I blame myself, because he was fit enough and good enough to win it as he should by winning the invitation 17 spots faster than the final.
Looking back, I do think he struggled with the three races in a week but then recovered with a week’s break.
He didn’t run Sunderland but also did a couple of fast times at Yarmouth. Whether he is as good as last year remains to be seen.
I also expect to take Evanta Fantasy who has a great record at Romford, plus Evanta El Greco, Aayamzaone, Huggies Buck.
Look out too for Killmagner Mike – he could be our ‘dark horse’.
