Last week was a good week. Three of our five dogs made it through to the second round of the Derby.
I thought it should be four. Burgess Oscar seemed to find his own trouble at the first bend and then again at the third bend, but that’s how it goes.
Looking at the trap draws for the second round, I am reasonably pleased. Swift Hoffman is drawn in an incredibly tough heat (6) on Friday but at least he has the ‘six’.
There are five heat winners in the race including Lenson Sanchez (28.17) but we are drawn on the outside of a notoriously slow breaker, Shotgun Harley – who is actually a dog I like very much.
I was delighted with Hoffman in the first round. He showed tremendous trackcraft and intelligence to wait for the right time to pass on the bends, and then you could clearly see him change gear. I am not convinced that he has taken to the Wimbledon style starting traps yet, but we’ll know more after Saturday.
My partner Julie always handles Hoffman and she will be at Wimbledon on Friday. It was too much to hope for that our three would all be drawn on the same night, but this will be the last time – hopefully we still have something in it for the ’48 stage’.
I’ll be travelling with Newinn Yolo and Ascot Woodie on the Saturday and I am reasonably hopeful with both.
Yolo has drawn trap three with Barefoot Artist and Dusktildawn on his inside. The blinding early pace is probably on our outside with Lenson Tiggy and Clares Wonder.
My hope is that Yolo can seize the inside at the first bend and we will take our chance from there. At that point I would be reasonably hopeful of qualifying.
Ascot Woodie has trap one in heat 12. He might be the apparent lesser lights in the kennel, but I love him to bits. He is one of those dogs who just wants to please you.
He is owned by Alan and Tony Newitt who really bought him hoping we could run him in A1 at Perry Barr. They were a bit embarrassed about asking whether we could run Woodie in the Derby, and given how far away we are, even suggested he could go in it without a trial.
That was never going to happen and they were absolutely over the moon when he won his heat.
He is well drawn in trap one and I am hoping he can lead up on the inside from Kentish Kane and Droopys Ward.
I thought Ward was the most impressive winner of the first round and I can easily see him making the final again. I would expect Geelo Vegas (T4) to lead from four though hopefully we can be on his inside at the third bend.
Woodie stays on well, but he will need to, with Ward and Adageo Bob, who also ran an absolute cracker in the first round, sure to be running on.
As I have said before, our dogs are all capable of leading or running on and that is so important if you are going to qualify and things don’t go your way.
Of all the Wimbledon Derbys, I can only really think of Shanless Slippy as putting in a foot-perfect performance. Most of the other winners have had to battle at some stage in the event.
That will be particularly true by the time we get to the Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday stage when a lot of the early paced specialists might be struggling.
When it comes to winning times, I am always cautious about the time of the meeting when the heats are run. Last week, the fastest times of the night were recorded in the first heat, in three of the four nights.
The track record went in the first race of the night on Saturday though I was left a bit confused by the second race.
It was won by Viking Jack, who is an absolute top class greyhound, and one I tried to buy. His sectional was a length quicker than Eden The Kid’s, and I was convinced that the new track record was in danger.
Yet Viking Jack clocked 28.33 compared to Eden The Kid’s 27.95. I am bewildered by the whole thing.
But take nothing away from Eden The Kid. The connections are great supporters of the greyhound industry. Rab and Liz McNair always turn out their dogs in perfect condition, which is why they get so many winners. They are good friends, and are from a similar flapping background as myself, though I don’t think we ever met in those days.
I was mainly racing in the North West, and I didn’t venture into Scotland very often. Of course, even then, you didn’t know who was behind the dogs as it was all done in secrecy.
I don’t think Rab would have needed to hide behind a wall not to be seen, though surely to God you would have heard him!
The biggest cloud over the weekend was the broken hock for Cashen Maureen, trained by Julie’s mum, June.
I spoke to June on Saturday and she was devastated, as was Anthony Kaminskas, who is one of the owners. These people put so much into racing and deserve a bit of luck.
At least, being a bitch, they will have another opportunity to enjoy Maureen when she has some pups. I don’t suppose June can see it that way at the moment, but she will one day.
Losing dogs to injury is the worst part of this job, and we have all had the taste of it.
In some ways, the biggest gut wrencher was Take The Crown breaking his leg. I was really hoping to run him in this Derby and am convinced he would have gone on to become a top class stayer.
In some ways though, the bigger tragedy was his litter brother Lawful Force, who was owned by my brother Pete and some of his colleagues in the police.
He was a big handsome 80lb black and in his first trials, he was quicker than Take The Crown. But he broke a leg in his first mixed trial and we never got to see his potential. Those things take some getting over.
We are already planning for the Monmore Festival and had some runners there last Thursday. In fact, between Nottingham on Monday, Monmore on Thursday, and Wimbledon on Wednesday and Saturday, my head was spinning. We will be back there again this week.
We have some cracking youngsters due to join us from Ireland including Bower City and Bower Village who were bred by John Saunders and both won impressively at Tralee last week.
There are another couple of good youngsters also waiting to be sent but we are not taking any more in at the moment.
With the Derby on, the slightest risk of any infection just isn’t worth taking. They’ll be on their way as soon as our Derby interest is over.
I hope they are still in Ireland at the end of the month!
