With the 2013 top stayer and Greyhound of the Year Farloe Tango enjoying a well earned retirement, who would take his place?
Millwards Teddy, beaten in a couple of puppy finals switched to six bends for Monmore’s Gold Cup Festival 630 and turned over hot favourite Airport Captain. A couple of months later it was off to Doncaster for the Pinpoint Recruitment Yorkshire St Leger and his second Category One event. A win in the Wimbledon equivalent would surely have cemented his title but early crowding saw the Paul Young runner some eight lengths adrift of Roxholme Dream at the split and nearly three lengths still short at The winning line. Almost overnight, Hayley Keightley’s became a serious challenger for the top stayer’s title – and possibly more. The Leger win was the tenth outing of Dream’s GBGB career and her eighth win. Win number nine came in the heats of the ‘Lawrence Jones Memorial 684’ and she then met Teddy again in the final. It would prove a messy race that resulted in two runners beaten a distance, including a mortality for the unfortunate Droopys Hawaii. The £5,000 prize went to the Keightley runner with Millwards Teddy, almost inevitably, second. After missing his break and finding himself five adrift at the sectional, Teddy reduced the deficit to a length – quite possibly the distance that will cost him the top stayer’s title. Earlier in the year, Kevin Cobbold, whose father Joe, bred and handled the 1981 Greyhound of the Year Decoy Boom, would have had realistic expectations of landing this award with Romantic Rambo. Between March and September the black won nine of his twelve outings including the final of the Golden Crest Six Bender at Poole and the Select Stayers. He also set track records for 687m at Wimbledon and 730 metres at Nottingham. He ran second to Millwards Teddy in the Doncaster St Leger but then broke down when leading a second round heat of the Wimbledon equivalent. Farley Rio landed the second biggest staying event in the calendar – the William Hill Grand Prix. Other six benders worthy of a note in despatches in include Airmount Paco (Great North Run), Boltatwelldigger (Regency), Jazz Tilly (Spring Festival 630), Scala Dromin (Prestige), Borna Champ (Kent St Leger) and Airport Captain (Summer Stayers). Over the ‘soft six bends’ Millards Master (Champion Stakes) and Adoremus (Essex Vase) are deserving of mention.
The three GWA final nominations are:
MILLWARDS TEDDY, ROMANTIC RAMBO, ROXHOLME DREAM
Previous winners
2013 Farloe Tango
2012 Blonde Reagan
2011 Blonde Fletch
2010 Droopys Bradley
2009 Lorrys Options
2008 Lenson Joker
2007 Spiridon Louis
2006 Westmead Aoifa
2005 Greenacre Lin
2004 Roxholme Girl
2003 Maxie Rumble
