“Mick will have to phone you back. There’s been an emergency.”
He might have just pulled off one of the biggest strokes of his career, but when your daytime job is a plumber, and someone has a burst pipe. . . .
The reason for the call was this:
When Stormy New crossed the winning line having landed the 2023 Bresbet Gymcrack, it was the highlight of a 42 year training career for Cramlington, Northumberland based owner trainer Mick Hurst . . . and one that had a somewhat unusual beginning.
Mick said: “I was 18 and I knew this lad who kept greyhounds. He had so many that he couldn’t cope and there was no room for this one little dog who was outside in the snow. So I bought him for £35.
“He was such a small dog that I managed to get him into whippet races. Eventually the whippet lads copped on and were having none of it so I had to run him with the greyhounds. He was only a grader but we had a lot of fun with him.”
Mick’s early years were spent on the North East flaps – he was one of the first subscribers to a new newspaper, Greyhound Star (“I couldn’t wait for it to come in the post every month”) – and his particular favourite haunts were Stanley and Pelaw Grange.
Although he absolutely loves a punt, Mick grew disillusioned with some of the antics he saw on the flaps and when Sunderland switched to NGRC racing, he took out a permit licence.
He said: “I got sick of seeing dogs being taken onto the tracks with glassy eyes and had obviously been messed around with. I wanted no part of that.”
But like the true flapper he remains at heart, Mick would pop up every so often and quietly pull off a gamble. One of his biggest moneyspinners was a dog called Clounlaheen who he landed a nice £3,000-£500 touch with at Sunderland on debut.
He then took him for the 2005 National Sprint at Nottingham. He went all the way and clocked 17.74 in a final that included Ningbo Jack.
Mick has two great memories of the night.
He said: “We got 7-1 on the night (returned 6s) and with other bets in the heats, we won over £30K. I remember getting home that night and as I walked through the door, the phone was ringing. It was Charlie Lister phoning to congratulate me. That meant an awful lot.”
There have been various other moneyspinners over the years, College Olympic, who was the joint sprint track record holder at Coventry when the track closed, Rock Me Kewell and Bonito Amigo (Kranky Mark).
All have landed gambles at some stage or another, but they are getting more difficult to pull off.
Mick said: “It is harder to get the money on. But also, it is harder to assess your dog. All the schooling tracks have closed. I used to particularly like going to Dunham. You did a time around there, you knew what you’d got.”
Other things Mick misses from the past include quality vets, more thoroughly schooled dogs, consistent seeding and a little more understanding from some racing offices.
He said: “I used to use Paul Evans, who was a top class vet. Or you could go to Richard Torr, Plunket Devlin or Paddy Sweeney.
“I took a dog to one local vet who was convinced there was an infection in its paw. She gave it so many sets of antibiotics but it kept coming back. In the end, it worked out at 64. We eventually found that it was a corn that hadn’t yet come through. It could have been cut out on day one.”
The ‘underschooled’ dogs issue is something Mick has seen develop over the years.
He said: “A lot of these Irish dogs are so manufactured to get a clear run and a sale, that they have never learned to pass dogs. I had something similar with Kranky Mark. In the end, Daniel Rankin at Shawfield let me trial him against dogs that were going to lead him and run from different traps. For a dog who didn’t know how to pass, it changed him completely.
“It was my biggest concern about Stormy News running at Kinsley. I was really keen for him to get behind dogs to see how he would handle it. As it turned out, that never happened.”
While social media seems to have very little positive to say about tracks and racing offices, Mick is keen not to label them all the same.
He said: “Some tracks simply won’t give you trials. It is too much trouble and then they wonder why their opens are full of their own dogs. I reckon they want it that way because the local trainers moan about appearance money when the opens are on.
“Getting a dog marked up is another nightmare. I was quoted a fortnight to get Stormy News marked up. So I phoned Kinsley and they said, ‘bring him tomorrow’.
“Sheffield are very good too. I took Stormy News there and they gave me a trial straight away. It didn’t work out quite as I planned because we ran him from trap two and he went in a straight line to the bend. When I asked the racing manager to seed him wide, he told me couldn’t because of how the dog trialled.
“He got trap one in the race, was bumped at the traps and got beat. But I have no problem with the decision. Given what he saw, the racing manager had no choice. I would like to see more racing managers stand their ground on seeding. Badly seeded dogs ruin way too many races and injure too many dogs.
“I had his dam Bonito Fox who came back from a broken hock after a brilliant five hour operation by Paul Evans. I was bringing her back to racing and she went in a race where a dog on her inside, who wasn’t a railer, took her right off the track and finished her career.”
Despite his obsesrvations about things he would like to see changed in the sport, Mick remains in love with greyhound racing.
He said: “I hear all the moaning about the industry and I just don’t see what people are moaning about. The prize money has never been better. The welfare has never been better. And most of the wrong-uns have been chased out of the industry.
“Most of the tracks are looking after the trainers better than before, but nothing comes close to Kinsley. If I go racing, I’ll often take someone with me to share the driving. I’ll normally get one meal ticket, so I have to buy the second, and the quality of the meals varies from track to track.
“But at Kinsley, they put on a full Sunday lunch with desert for whoever has come with the dog. For the final, it was real VIP treatment. There were tables of eight for connections in the main restaurant and I don’t think I have ever seen food quite like it. It was unbelievably good. I cannot praise the place enough.”
Mick only has three runners in his kennels, Stormy News, Pennys Cooper and Droopys Soldier. The latter will be heading down to Sheffield for the Three Steps To Victory.
Mick said: “He has a habit of missing his break on the second time in the boxes. He did it at Sheffield in the Queen Mother Cup and at Sunderland. So I am trialing him from the sprint first and see if we can overcome it.
“I will just look for another puppy race for Stormy News, not a competition. He isn’t the best kenneler either which is why he didn’t run as well in the Gymcrack Final as he did in the semis. On the night of the semis, he was in a quiet kennel at the back, but they didn’t have one on final night.
“He was at the front and there was a lot going on outside his kennel. He got himself very worked up but thankfully he still did enough”
One final thought. Given that you backed the dog at 40-1 ante post. And in the heats and semis at 9-2 and 6-1. And you took the 7-4 on the day of the race with the dog returning at 11-10 favourite. . . . I don’t suppose there is any chance you would like to share with the readers, exactly how much you collected?
Mick chuckles. . . . “Absolutely no chance whatsoever!”
