Sherry Prince

Great to see a picture of my all-time favourite hurdler – the fantastic Sherry’s Prince with his owner Joyce Matthews.
Little known fact is that Director of Racing Major Percy Brown would often buy ten dogs at a time from Harry O’Neill in Ireland and they would be shared around the original GRA provincial tracks – Powderhall,,.Belle Vue, White City,Manchester and Hall,  Green to bolster racing strengths and also to sell on to new owners at those tracks..
Anyway, Sherrys Prince turns up at the Hall Green track-based kennels of – and I can’t quite remember if it was Roger Harris or Monty Evans.- and has a whole succession of trials over 500 yards.
Long-serving and dyed-in-the-wool GRA racing manager Sid Wood takes a dislike of the dog and won’t grade it,although it ended up having  something like twenty trials !
Every Tuesday  Percy would phone round from his Berkeley Square office to each of his racing managers, enquiring about matters generally.
Upon phoning Sid he asked about the company-owned dogs there and in particular Sherrys Prince which had still to have a race at Hall Green.
Sid responded “No,Major the dog is very iffy, I’m not going to run it and I am about to dispose of it !”
The Major reacted firmly to that idea saying “No, no Sidney send it down to Shevlin at New Cross. They’ve just started eight-dog trials there with a view to us beginning eight-dog racing at Catford and Belle Vue and New Cross has an inside hare so the dog could be alright “.
So Sid arranges for Sherrys Prince to be sent unaccompanied on the train, as dogs could be in those days, from New Street Station down to Euston.
The dog eventually arrives at the New Cross kennels just off the Old Kent Road.  John Shevlin gives him a couple of trials but so impressed with this big powerful dog decides to give him some hurdles schooling, helped by his head kennel girl, the lovely Irene McNally.
And the rest is history !

Bob Rowe

Prize Money

What is great news about an under funded British bred competition where in the probable  winning greyhound would have cost £10k to win a competition worth £3k? Please explain the logic, and people wonder why the ship is sinking.

Raymond Carter

Sorry Ray – can’t agree with you on this one. Not entirely. It is like a golfer saying, ‘I spent all this money on equipment and membership but unless I win it back in prize money, I won’t bother playing’. In the huge majority of cases, most people expect their hobby to cost them and that includes greyhound owners.

It is ultimately about value for money. ‘Unless the industry gives me good value, including adequate enjoyment, excitement, and a worthwhile experience for £X, I will find a hobby that does’. Clearly thousands of owners have made that decision that greyhound racing is selling them short.

Although racing is a hobby to owners, ultimately greyhound racing is a business. The only reason that there are owners in the first place is because it saves tracks and bookmakers money. If tracks could afford to pay £500 for every winner and £200 for every runner, they would own the dogs themselves. Which is how all of this started back in 1926 – Ed

Drahbeg Dash

You can’t win them all and I’m  very happy and proud that this wonderful athlete took us to a Cat 1 Final; congratulations to all the connections of Bockos Doomie . DASH is booked in for a 630 trial at Monmore next Saturday (which was always the plan regardless of how last night panned out). Big thanks to Gerry, Hannah and Kevin at  kennels and to Ian Greaves.
Hopefully it’s a case of “onwards and upwards.”

Paul Gebhard

Memories

When Ballyregan Bob was at the height of his run of winning races, there was litter of his pups with the trainer Peter Carpenter who lived at Trulie Hill, Shoreham by Sea.
His kennels were right up the hill past the YHA hostel, near the South Downs Way. I was looking to buy a greyhound pup with a mind to racing the greyhound. When I saw the litter of pups, they looked nothing like greyhounds, more like small labradors. After speaking to Peter, he convinced me it was a better option to buy a dog who was race ready, rather than wait until the dog was old enough to race. He had such a race ready dog from Limerick in Ireland, who had a marvelous pedigree, it’s name was Solo Man.

I could buy a half share of this dog who was ready to go. Peter had many dogs with the prefix of Farm Hill, named after his previous home. So Solo man became Farm Hill George. Peter ran his dogs mainly at Portsmouth. I had a lot of fun and some success with this dog. There was a big trophy race at Portsmouth this was a dual distance race with a six bend and four bend race. George won the first heat, and went on to be runner up to Premier Fever who won the enormous  trophy in the final. George had some open race success at Reading, and being a big dog, got sought of stuck in the traps in a race at Swindon.

On the night of the great storm, when the south of England lost millions of trees, George was due to race at Portsmouth. I was in Shoreham and met a kennel girl, who said we cannot get out past the YHA hostel, the trees are blocking the way. I assumed they would not make it to Portsmouth. No, how surprised I was to see George had won, at odd of 10 to 1, and I didn’t have a bet on him! They had cut their way out with chainsaws. One time George had trial over a long distance, with Scurlogue Champ, he was respectably beaten by 12 lengths, but in the Sporting Life, the form said that George had beaten the Champ by 12 lengths. What a betting upset that could be. Peter Carpenter was accused of running another Farm Hill dog in place of another, and lost his licence. I then bought the other half of George and managed to get him into Hove, my local track. He had some 12 wins at Hove and I have the videos of these.

Richard Newnham

Magnificent Five

I am a member of some syndicates who have dogs with Brian Thompson at Monmore Green and have had a most magnificent 5 days in which we have had 5 runners who have all won.

Final Supreme 5/1 set the ball rolling when winning. followed by Mustang Rocky 11/4, then Jazzers Man and Harveys Gem on Thursday before Final Heat won yesterday.

Brian is a fantastic trainer ably assisted by Jack, Gaz and Abby and what makes it extra special is that Heat and Supreme were making their debuts . None of the syndicate are big gamblers in that the dogs were allowed to go off at backable prices. Jazzers did 28 10 and is possibly one of the best dogs on the track at the moment.

It is disappointing that this happened during lockdown and as owners we had to watch the action on computers but its unlikely to happen again any time soon. If there was a trainers performance of the week I’d be nominating Brian

Andrew Brownsword