Liz Mort, who took over as chairman of the British Greyhound Breeders’ Forum earlier in the year, was keen to remind members how far the organisation has continued to progress, when she addressed their AGM last week.
Appropriately, on final night of the BGBF British Bred Derby, she noted the proliferation in confined open race competitions.
Where once there were the two Produce Stakes, there are now a steady stream of events spread between all three categories of competition, over a variety of distances and staged throughout the country.
The Forum committee was generally very pleased with the way these competitions had been run and received this year, and the intention would be to run them again, with maybe some tweaking here and there as to the timing.
Importantly though they wanted to build on this now solid base of competitions in 2020 – expanding to offer even more opportunities for British Bred greyhounds and their connections.
They needed to get to all tracks in the country, and to a much broader range of dogs – graded as well as open racers. There were ideas as to how this could and would be achieved, but until the committee had been informed of 2020 funding levels from the British Greyhound Racing Fund, from where most of the money came, nothing could be finalised.
In the lively discussion which followed, attention was drawn to the recent report on the current situation in Ireland, where four tracks were about to close. This would have a knock-on effect on breeding over there and the meeting agreed that this could only mean British Breeding would have an increasingly important role in racing in the UK in the near future.
The work of the BGBF was therefore even more vital, and breeders had to be given an incentive to breed British at all levels! The meeting agreed that addressing this would be a priority.
After the meeting attendees, plus connections of the dogs running in the two BGBF races over the evening, enjoyed some excellent hospitality, courtesy of the Management team at Sheffield, headed by David Perry.
The four Cat 1s in 2019 had comprised the BGBF / Swindon Produce Stakes, run in conjunction with Swindon; the BGBF/ Nottingham Breeders Stakes; the BGBF Northern Plate at Newcastle, a new competition which represented the group’s first real engagement with Northern tracks; and the aforesaid BGBF Derby.
These had seen a good spread of winners, with the Produce being won by King Sheeran, bred and owned by Brendan Keogh’s KSS Syndicate and trained by Liz McNair; the Northern Plate by Jill Sutherst and Glynn Lynas’s home bred/owned and trained Witton Derecho, and the Breeders Stakes by Romeo Rumble, bred and owned by David Firmager and trained by John Mullins.
The Derby later on that evening was taken by Produce Stakes winner King Sheeran, with second home Russelena Bowwow, and Sharpys Pluto in third. The Invitation was won by Rack Itup Turbo, bred by Nathan Hunt, owned by him and Luke Staunton, and trained by Phil Simmonds.
The Cat 2s run in 2019 were the Puppy Cup at Sheffield (winner Romeo Ruben); the Scurry at Henlow (Signature Dancer); St Leger at Central Park (Affleck Bolt); the Oaks at Doncaster (Pond Natalya); and the Sprint at Harlow (Signet Hawk). The only Cat 3 this year was the Marathon at Romford (Saving Sonic).
