I love the big meetings and am looking forward to Wednesday on SKY and the Coral Sussex Cup in which we have Calco Flyer plus a number on the supporting card.
We know he will do well to win it, but to coin the phrase ‘we are just happy to be there’. As I have mentioned in the past, he is owned by a syndicate of golfing mates. Every year we go to Portugal for a few days and I really look forward to it. Most of the syndicate don’t have a greyhound background but they have loved owing Flyer who wasn’t an expensive purchase. He has done us proud having already reached the East Anglian Derby, Arc and Stud Book Trophy finals and we will enjoy the whole Hove experience. I have let it known that if we can get Flyer over the line, I am expecting to be downgraded by a couple of shots in my golfing handicap.
We also have Ela Ela Genie in the sprint final. He is a lovely young dog who is just starting to perform against the more experience sprinters and is open to more improvement. We also have Patchys Kerry in the bitch’s final. We entered her at Hove as a confidence booster after being KO’d at Sunderland. Everyone knows she really wants further but I expect her to come on from the heat run. Her long term plan is to defend her Champion Stakes Trophy in September.
(Contrary to anything you might have read in the Racing Post’s Mutley, I have not been avoiding Romford, I just haven’t had the right type of dogs for it, particularly the ‘575s’ which is quite unusual for our kennel. I have always loved ‘Romford Fridays’ and hope to have quite a few runners there in the coming weeks.)
We also have good old Billys Bullet and Domino Storm on the supporting card. Storm never ceases to amaze me and will hopefully be heading for the Lowther Stakes next. At this stage the plan is to keep her in training to defend her Oaks title. I am very proud of our third season runners. Like Calco Flyer, and despite Billy’s hock injury, Domino Storm and Billys Bullet are approaching their fourth birthdays and are running as well as ever. I think my staff have to take a lot of the credit for that.
Next week we have the final of the Colossus Bets TV Trophy at Towcester and I think our runner Ribble Atom is a firm second favourite behind Ballymac Bonnie who beat her last year.
I don’t know why Atom ran so poorly in her previous race – it was just an off-night – but she ran well enough to win her TV Trophy heat and was only three spots behind the favourite. Comparing her with Ballymac Bonnie, I would say that Atom possibly has more early pace, and will stay just as well; another lap wouldn’t bother her. But she possibly has less middle pace than the favourite and is not such a clever tracker.
We have won the event previously with Blonde Reagan but this is a very different type of race. You can push your luck with a strong six-bender to get a short eight bends – in his case it was over 835m at Monmore. But once you get over 900 metres, you need a different type of greyhound. And training a true marathon runner with a 10 day gap between heats and final is a challenge. Ideally I would want to get another race into her but you risk injury, even a little niggle would rule you out of the final. But we’ll do our best to have her spot on for the final.
