The rain continues to pour, the kennel stars are tucked on their beds, but the hard work for next year has already started.
Our kennel is pretty much evenly split between established open racers and unraced pups and they are the ones occupying our time at the moment. We have about 15 youngsters being schooled and prepared for racing.
The most forward pair are Newinn Champ and Swift Paradise who are due to trial at Nottingham and should be just about ready to race. Champ (Aero Majestic-Little Flutter, Jul 14), the half brother to Newinn Yolo who ran so well in his first qualifying trial missed his break in his last sprint trial at Nottingham and still did 17.91 in a sprint. Swift Paradise (Paradise Madison-Swift Erin), who is a half brother to Swift Hoffman, Domino Storm and the rest, is due to have his first 500 metre trial.
We also have four Droopys Scoarli/Little Flame pups due to trial at Newcastle and hopefully qualify for a British bred race on the 29th.
At the other end of the scale, I have taken one of our unraced pups to a homing kennel this morning. Seathwaite Tim had showed a bit of promise but we haven’t been able to get him right due to various niggles.
With the agreement of his owner Robert Ferrari, we decided that we wouldn’t persevere if it meant he would always have problems. He is a lovely dog and will make a great pet and we have paid a donation to help in the re-homing costs.
This year we sadly lost Farran Heaslip who couldn’t be saved and the last dog who had to be put to sleep, under veterinary advice, was more than a year ago. He was a fast, and very promising young dog called Farran Maze who picked up a bad hock injury and it was the kindest thing to do.
We never, ever, have a greyhound put to sleep for commercial reasons.
