I said in the last column that I thought the Eden The Kid/Skate On litter had started to really ‘come on’ and thankfully Diamond, Dylan and Cash lived up to expectations on Thursday night.

I was watching them stretched out in the sun and am convinced that the weather, along with them simply growing up and maturing, has brought them on a bundle.

I was a bit surprised to see that Dorotas Wildcat was being talked up by the journalists as virtually unbeatable before the heats, but King Turbo was reckoned to need the run. What was the difference between the two?

I think both dogs were in a similar position. Both myself and Big Kevin Hutton would just have been hoping for our dogs to qualify. Winning was never important.

You just can’t switch these dogs off and on after a decent break and I would expect Turbo to come on from the run.

I have always enjoyed running dogs at Hove. It was a track where you would never dare turn up with a second-rater.

I just hope that they never abandon the 515 metres distance. Ideally, I would have preferred that for the new 490, they had moved the winning line and not the starting traps.

I think the new start causes problems for dogs used to the 515m. If you think about it, from the 515s, they can hear the hare as it rattles against the twists in the hare rail at the bend behind them. But from the 475 boxes it is almost silent and they are inclined to miss the break.

Don’t get me wrong, I had no problem coming to Hove with dogs like Shaneboy Spencer for the 475 metre races. But he was a certain type, ‘a Henlow Derby’ kind of dog. The 515 metres is a unique distance for a top top class greyhound.

We need these true tests. I always thought it was a backwards step when Shawfield switched the Scottish Derby from 500 to 480 metres.

Sadly, I can understand why they brought the new distance in. It is a sign of deteriorating quality. It was one thing to have dogs running off the front in sprints but to see a dog being given seven metres start in a 261m race at Sunderland says something about the direction the game is going.

I was away on holiday for the heats of the Springbok and understand that there a few people mouthing off about King Nelson in the paddock afterwards. I wish I had been there.

I know Nelson is iffy, but from the video there was no sign of him fighting. Years ago, he would have been exactly the sort of dog I would have been looking to buy cheap to run on the flaps.

I have done everything I know to straighten him out, and will keep trying but I think it will take probably ten races to educate him. If we can get there, I don’t think there is a hurdler in training who will be able to live with him.

The thing is, on the gallop at home, he is the most genuine, jealous dog of the litter. After they’ve chased the drag and want to mess about at the end, he stands over the lure and guards it, not wanting anyone to take it away.

There is a worry that if that Mane Mane flies up and Nelson is chasing him, what will happen? If Nelson was to break in front, I have no doubt at all that he would pull away.

Thursday night started brilliantly with trials before racing when King Idol beat his sister Queen Cher in a sprint trial at Hove.

Idol won by two and a half lengths in 16.29 on going they rated .10 slow. I am to be convinced that the track was running slow, but even on the actual time, I was absolutely thrilled.

The pair are May ’17s by Eden The Kid out of Shaws Dilemma and they are every bit as good as pups we have had before. In fact, I don’t think I ever had a pup at similar stage who could have done that run.

I am going to be a lot more cautious with King Elvis this year.

It is his third season of racing and I think he needs to be better looked after and kept to distances that suited him. The young dogs can handle the extra work load but the older ones can’t.

The first target will be the Golden Sprint at Romford, and although I would still have races like the Henlow Derby in mind, it would be at the upper end of his programme this year.

I still have a lot of friends from our time on the flapping circuit and Liz and I recently spent a week away with a couple of the best, Jimmy Wright and Angela Harrison.

It was a great time to chill out and recharge the batteries. Jimmy and Angela are as good a company as you could hope to find.

On the subject of the flaps, I remember visiting the great Willie Grey one day and seeing a beautiful oil painting on the wall. It was a portrait of Geoffrey De Mulder’s open racer Desert Pilot (pictured).

(*For those who don’t remember the dog, Desert Pilot was the fastest, if not the luckiest dog of his generation. In 1979, he won the Select Stakes, Nationwide Championship, and the Summer Cup and was the beaten English Derby favourite (3rd). He broke track records at Sheffield and Perry Barr over 500m. In 1980, he again won the Select Stakes, was beaten favourite in the St.Leger (3rd) and set four and six bend track records at Shefield – Ed)

When I asked Willie what he was doing with the painting, he said, ‘When Geoffrey needed to make a few quid, he would send Desert Pilot to me. He might have been a bit unreliable on the quiet hare, but on the rattler on the flapping tracks, the dog was unbeatable. Geoffrey and I both won absolute fortunes on him, which is why he sent me the painting’.

 

(Right – Jimmy is still working out ways to get his money on unnoticed)

Who said the Jock lads can’t do ‘romantic’?