OXFORD IN SUPERB NICK

With a GBGB licence to race hopefully just 72 hours away, one of greyhound racing’s true living legends paid his first visit to Oxford since the track’s closure a decade ago, and he was blown away by what he found – writes Floyd Amphlett.

Britain’s greatest ever breeder/trainer said: “It looks incredible, massively better than before. I can’t believe that Kevin has done all of this for under two million pounds.”

As might be expected of a man who won every race classic as a trainer, Nick made a bee line for the first bend.

He said: “It is definitely narrower than before, but that is no bad thing. There was no need for the bends to be that wide before, not that it was ever a bad track.”

Questions about the sand and plans for watering were inevitable and promoter Kevin Boothby was ready for them.

Kevin said: “The track was tested by STRI who dug various holes. There are eleven inches of sand. It is exactly the same sand as Henlow which I think is the best in the business. It has the ideal water retention qualities. There are a lot of injuries in the industry at the moment. You can say it is down to the weather, but one of the main reasons is because the tracks are too dry. You can feel it with your fingers. The sand isn’t retaining the water well enough. As an owner, I won’t race my dogs on those tracks as they are at the moment.”

(Despite all the fuss that was made about a surface that ran a maximum of -20 on one night of the Derby, and for the vast majority of races ran ‘normal’, Boothby can claim to have made huge progress at Towcester. Readers may remember the crisis which led to STRI being called in by Lord Hesketh during Towcester Mk-1, when the management admitted that they couldn’t pump enough water onto the cirucit to maintain its condition in mid-Summer. An issue identified by the boffins as due to Towcester’s ‘micro-climate’.)

Kevin said: “What a lot of people don’t realise is that I’ve been a Henlow now for 18 years and I’m not corporate. I’ve spent a lot of time on the track and know how to prepare a surface. I know every inch of that track and how to fix the problem.”

Sorry – but it has to be asked – so how did you end up losing several races due to hare problems at Towcester on Sunday?

Kevin said: “Don’t even go there! There are certain signs to pick up on when things are about to go wrong and they weren’t. I knew straight away that the hare rope must have been too tight. It shouldn’t have happened.

“As far a watering at Oxford is concerned, we have the pond supplied by a borehole and a pump that can produce ten thousand litres every four minutes. The whole track will be watered by hand. It is the only way to do it properly in my experience. You have to keep the surface wet.”

(Those sentiments would undoubedly be endorced by former Swaffham boss Tom Smith, who like his Henlow counterpart, reguarly got his hands sandy. Tom’s philosophy was that the track should never be allowed to dry out and had to be kept watered even on non-race days. Tom believed that intensive last minute drenching was doomed to failure since little of the water soaked in; most flowed away.)

Nick concurs.

He said: “You have to hand water, the bowser doesn’t know which parts of the track need more water than others. And I don’t like what the bowser does to the track compaction. I don’t think you can get better than the Henlow sand. Of all the tracks I raced graded at (Walthamstow, Wembley, Milton Keynes, Coventry, Towcester), Henlow was always the safest. I had very few serious injuries there over the years, and I was running dogs there back in the flapping days.”

The circuit is due to be measured for ascertain the correct distances. If the track is narrower, as Nick Savva is convinced it is, and the hare rail (albeit a new one) is in exactly the same place as the old one, then the circuit must inevitably be bigger.

Kevin said: “I will be interested to see. Of course you don’t know whether it was measured accurately first time around. But it should be at least two metres longer than the old 450 metres because we have moved the winning line roughly that far.”

The circuit looks ready to go with Astroturf due to be fitted on the outside of the hare rail, it is currently just on the inside. Interestingly the ‘concrete’ outside wall is actually made of foam, another concession to greyhound safety.

Most of the stadium facilities are now functional, the place has staged 18 speedway meetings already. They include the main grandstand, the Joey Beauchamp Sports Bar (under the stand off the last bend) and corporate boxes. The Jolly Poacher Bar (under the stand near the first bend) is due to open this weekend.

Senior Steward Paul Illingworth is still to see the hare in action and sign off the timer. There is also last minute work to be carried out in the kennels. Doors that were considered adequate in continuous service at Peterborough are being adapted to allow greater airflow.

The temperature in Cowley on Monday was around 28 degrees but the kennels, even without the air conditioning turned on, were by far the coolest place in the stadium.

There will be 80 kennels ready to go immediately plus another 23 due to be completed in the coming weeks. Interestingly, they include a small range cut off from the remainder.

Kevin said: “We know that some dogs are bad kennelers and those kennels are very quiet away from the main area. Hopefully it will help. We also have two kennels that have been adapted directly opposite the vet’s room where Polly (Smith – track vet) will be able to keep an eye on them. There were more kennels than we needed so we have put aside a secure area where trainers will be able to lock away their possessions.”

After more than a year in preparation and various false dawns, the delays are getting shorter and deadlines more certain. Assuming no last minute hitches on Thursday – Illingworth ticked a large number of boxes on his recent visit – the first trial session will take place on Wednesday August 17 with trials every Friday and Saturday until opening date on Friday September 2.

And there will be a legend in the house.

Nick Savva said: “I take my hat off to Kevin. I had forgotten how good this place was but it looks so much bigger than I remembered. And the facilities are fabulous, much better than before. Who else would spend the money that he has on a project like this? You could say it is probably SIS funded, but that doesn’t matter. Without Kevin, the place would still be closed.

“What a job he has done here for greyhound racing. It will lift the mood of everyone in the industry!”