We have virtually every available dog in the kennel running over this weekend with the highlight being the three semi finals of the Coral Sussex Cup at Hove.
King Lennon goes in the first semi final and I wouldn’t want to predict which way it would go. The key to the race could be the Killeacle Gus dog in red. He is a dog I really like and I suggested that Jimmy (Wright) try to buy him when he first arrived at the track with Ken Tester. But he wasn’t for sale.
He has a good bit of early, and if Bockos Doomie doesn’t smash away, he could find he has to get around the red. I am just hoping that Lennon stays out of trouble and gets a clear run behind them. His track craft has definitely improved as he has got older. He has been finishing so strong that I step him up to six bends and am thinking about the Summer Stayers Classic at Monmore.
One of the interesting things about Lennon is that I have a permanent battle to get him past the vet because he has a funny action. He had an infected toe when he was young and although it was treated and he has run his whole career with it, when the vets see him trot up, they think he is lame.
I have even had to persuade vets to phone other vets who know what he is like, and then sure enough he has come out and won.
We don’t have a runner in the second semi final but I will be watching it with interest. My pal Tony Collett has a runner in there with Tommys Panther who is a very fast dog on the bunny. But that Nans Major has impressed me too. He has a great burst of early and if he leads, he will take some catching, though you could never rule out Sparta Master either.
Sheeran and Dylan go in the third semi final and I just want to see Sheeran come away like he did last week and for Dylan also to repeat last week’s run. Ernie’s (Gaskin) dogs don’t seem to have been at the top of their form in the last month, but you know that will only be temporary. If Droopys Addition was to return to his best, he would definitely take some beating.
On the Friday night we will have five runners at Romford including the second races back for Queen Dolly and Queen Franklin.
When the litter first came through I thought that Dolly in particular was a decent sort. She has been unlucky after cracking some ribs at Doncaster which meant a long lay-off.
Compared to some of the dogs in the kennel, you might think that this first litter out of Queen Asia are ‘van fillers’, rather than the sort that you would be looking at Cat 1 competitions. But I have to remind myself that Dolly, Franklin and King Louis have all won a lot of opens between them.
There will be owners going to Ireland, seeing pups with no more ability than them winning a poor graded race by 15 lengths, and paying £25,000 for them.
Besides – there are now plenty of good British bred competitions in the calendar and I feel we have a responsibility to support them.
We also have the litter brothers King Bruno and King Drake over the 400. Bruno did 24.03 in his trial; I could have trialled Drake this week but thought this race would do just as well.
I am expecting big improvement from this litter in the coming weeks. As I said before, while lockdown has given the older dogs a welcome break, it has robbed the younger dogs of experience.
I still don’t know who is the best but I always thought King Sam was a good as his brothers. Sam was looking a bit like a sprinter before the break, though he did do 28.60 (480) at Monmore as a very young puppy. But he was coming in at over 37 kilos. He is now down to 35.8 and really looking the part at last, so I will be interested to see how he goes in his four bend trials.
The big news is that we are planning to give Queen Beyonce a handslip next week. We thought she was finished when she damaged the main tendon behind the wrist last year.
We kept her for breeding and we had her mated but she missed. In the meantime, I’ve kept an eye on the tendon and continue to treat it. She hasn’t raced since finishing lame in the Oaks last year but she looks good and I am happy with the state of the tendon. We would have handslipped her this week but for her being in milk.
The rest of her litter (Sheeran, Dylan, Lennon, Cash etc) are all looking as good as ever this year, so you never know.
Apart from Beyonce, we’ve actually had a bad year in terms of breeding. I’ve had at least five bitches miss this year and the paddocks are empty which is very disappointing.
We do have a handful of pups ready to be schooled including a repeat mating to King Turbo and a couple of pups out of Ballydoyle Pearl. There are also two bitches by Eden The Kid/Skate On and a pup out of Queen Anna who just learning to walk on a lead.
