Despite freezing fog and a temperature not far above zero, Swindon successfully staged the second round of the Property 192 Oaks on a greyhound Monday morning.
Track boss Peter Geeves said: “The meeting was in doubt for a while and I said to the track staff, ‘if we are not confident of staging all the races, we won’t start the meeting’, because I didn’t want some runners to have advantages over the others. Thankfully it cleared and we were able to run a successful meeting.”
Rab McNair would have faced worse on bleak Scottish independent tracks in his long distant past, but was cheered up by two outstanding performances from Queen Franklin and Queen Jessiej.
He said: “I couldn’t be happier with both. Franklin has had very little racing and didn’t come away as well as she can. But she ran the bends brilliantly which was a relief. She broke some ribs earlier in her career and has been looking after herself a bit at the bends, but she gave it everything.
“As for Jessiej, what can you say about her?. She improved since the last run and although the runner-up was catching her late on, she did everything just right.
“It was a pretty bleak morning and I was expecting to see the meeting called off when we first got there. It is a shame that the event has to be run at this time of year. It is maybe something that the open race planning committee might want to look at in the future.”
