It is nearly 12 months since Greyhound Trader started up … a brave decision considering Brexit and a global pandemic was in full swing!
The company’s first track sale was on 21st April 2021 and the father and son team of Nathan and James Corden were in new territory.  They must have been thinking what had they got themselves into when Lot 1 Early Arrival and Lot 2 Fake Tan failed to meet their reserves and were taken down.

Thankfully, Lot 3 sold by the name of Family Business sold for £5,500 and things went from strength to strength after that.
So 11 months on, what happened to that very first lot sold?  Family Business was purchased by Nic Jeal and sent to be trained by Mark Wallis.  She was renamed Antigua Lava and subsequently made 4 Category 1 finals (Stadium Bookmakers Marathon at Towcester, 1st Containers Marathon Trophy at Towcester, Cesarewitch at Crayford and Golden Jacket at Crayford), won the Category 2 George Curtis/Ballyregan Bob Memorial at Hove and broke 2 track records (Hove and Towcester).
If all purchased lots could be like that!
The rest of the sale did through up some other decent runners and surprisingly it wasn’t always the expensive ones. Take Marys Rocketman (ex Parrys Effect), purchased by Jamie Kingsley for just £250, who has won a 592m open at Harlow plus running in higher grades at Hove. What a bargain!
From the same sale came News Headlines who cost £7,500 but was sent back to Ireland to race on a breeding agreement. She has since produced 4 dogs by Paradise Madison and would be pups to keep an eye out as News Headlines is a half sister to the likes of Cable Bay, Coolavanny Chick, Unlock Unlock, Innocent Times, Jaytee Taylor and Coolavanny Bani to name just a few.
Another to catch the eye was Getwiththetimes (£5,800) who has turned into a nice stayer and has reached the semi-finals of 3 Category 1 competitions (Regency at Hove, Summer Stayers at Monmore and this weekend’s George Ing St Leger at Yarmouth). She has also produced one of the fastest times at Central Park over 642m for years.  A very shrewd investment by David Elcock as she will also make a lovely brood bitch.
Appreciate It reached a top price of the day of £9800. Though widely anticipated that he would end the sale as top lot few believed he’d quite reach the amount he did. That said the dog went onto win a heat of the English Derby and in open class over 575m at Romford so there have been plenty worse buys.
Other lots of note include Lodge Time (now Savana Domino) who produced a dazzling 29.50 victory in the Derby 1st Round; Urban Playboy a £650 bargain running A3 at Hove; Pullanotherlever A1 Hove £1,950; Errill Moon A2 Towcester £2,200; Makeit Bluey (ex Sleeping Giant) D1 Towcester £750 and Savana Charm (ex Jumeirah Jane) A1 Towcester/OR £4,300.
Nathan Corden said “I didn’t actually realise until you pointed it out that our very first lot sold was Antigua Lava. She has been a tremendous purchase for Nic Jeal. We are very excited about next week’s sale at Towcester and hope we can provide some top class greyhounds and hopefully some bargains too!  There are enough in the catalogue for trainers to get their owners together to form a syndicate and have a Derby runner.”