We’ve sent King Sheeran to stand at stud with the Dunphys in Ireland. He put a hole in a gracilis in his last trial which ended his career. Before he went he covered Wee Tiger Tots and King Danni.

Virtually the whole litter is finished now. King Lennon broke a hock at Nottingham, King Dylan suffered a stress fracture there. He will be off for three months which would mean he will be four years old so we have retired him too.

That only leaves King Cash and he will be retired within his next couple of races.

(One of the best British bred dogs of his era, Sheeran won won the Trafalgar Cup and broke his hock four races later in the semi finals of the 2018 British Breeders Stakes at Nottingham. His first race back after a seven month recovery was in the first round of the 2019 Star Sports Greyhound Derby. He was eliminated in the same semi final as English and Irish Derby winners Dorotas Wildcat and Ballyanne Sim. Sister Queen Beyonce was eliminated in the other semi.

Before the year ended the brindle had gone unbeaten through the Produces Stakes -beating brothers King Cash and King Dylan in the tricast – was a beaten favourite in the British Breeders Stakes Final and second to Ice On Fire in the Eclipse. He ended the year by winning the British Bred Derby at Sheffield and the Olympic at Hove. Sheeran was voted 2019 British Bred Greyhound of the Year.

Prior to the first lockdown Sheeran was beaten odds on favourite in the Coral Winter Derby Final. His last win before another injury setback was in a Gold Cup Trialstake at Monmore.

Sheeran was the most successful member of the Eden The Kid/Skate On litter in which all eight members won open races and six reached Cat 1 finals – Ed)

I have been asked a couple of times whether I was surprised by Queen Dolly’s 29.27 run at Nottingham on Monday. The answer is ‘yes’ and ‘no’.

If you had asked me a couple of weeks ago I would have said you were mad. But not if you’d asked me after she ran at Central Park.

Dolly was one of our runners at Nottingham a couple of weeks ago and they all ran shocking. I was really fed up with them all and said to Liz that we needed to shake them up a bit. There were a couple, including Dolly, who I thought were just going through the motions.

So I waited until the following night and took her out with a torch and went lamping. I let her off the lead in the field and she went hunting for rabbits. She chased after one and almost caught it but I turned the light off and it got away. She didn’t catch anything; I didn’t want her to.

But she had a really good gallop and after I caught her, I could see the change in her. She nearly had the lead out of my hands.

Her next race was at Central Park on the Sunday and I was telling Seamus Cahill that I had taken a couple of the dogs lamping. He said, ‘I hope one of them wasn’t Dolly, she is up against us’.

It was – and she ran absolutely brilliant: 28.90 on a track that was .20 slow.

She was still on her toes when we went to Nottingham so I wasn’t so surprised when she ran so well. But as fast as Beyonce’s best at Nottingham . . .  I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting that.

Apart from all the disruption of Covid and racing, we’ve had a terrible year in terms of breeding.

We’ve had six bitches mated but not one of them got in pup. Although we have four youngsters being schooled, there are no litters in the paddocks which is a massive disappointment.

Because of that, The Boss (Brendan Keough) has been and bought a dog in Ireland. It will be the first open racer in the kennel that we haven’t bred ourselves in years.

He is a nice young dog called Darth Vader. He has a 28.21 on his card at Shelbourne and reached the Puppy (Juvenile) Derby Final.

He did 29.27 (-40) at Central Park in his first four bend trial and he still hasn’t really settled in so we are quite hopeful. We plan to run him in the Kent Derby and then the Olympic at Hove.

We are only a small kennel – I am the only driver – so I am really chuffed that we are still third in the Trainers Championship, until now with dogs we have bred ourselves.

I am still holding out hope for at least one big race win before the end of the year. We are ticking over Queen Jessiej before the Oaks and I am undecided whether to take Dolly to Swindon as well, or possibly go to Sheffield for the British Bred Derby.”

I was really outraged to hear that GBGB are scrapping the open race licence and I texted in to RPGTV to tell them what I thought. Unfortunately they only read out a bit of what I had to say.

What really sickens me is that GBGB are apparently saying that they want to make training look more “professional”.

Well let me spell this out. I made the move from the flaps 18 years ago, and regularly saw dogs who were kept in sheds and garages. I would say that 80% of them were in better physical condition, and fed better than the dogs running on the BAGS/SIS service every day of the week.