You have to rate yourself pretty unlucky to break 35.00 for ROMFORD’s 575m in a maiden open and still be beaten.
Such was the fate of Shotgun Bullet on Friday when the Derek Knight trained black was chinned in a photo finish by Droopys Dresden.
To be fair, conections would have known their fate by the first bend following Derek Knight’s quote in this week’s Robs Romford Round-Up. “He will only get the trip if he leads. He won’t if he doesn’t lead. ”
But great credit to the Knight runner who was a length a bit behind Dresden in the at the split and clawed the margin back to a neck behind the 34.96 winner.
As for the winner, it has been a long and patient struggle for a dog whose career began so promisingly at 19 months old when he won a Wimbledon debut in 28.47.
He went lame in the Puppy Derby Final behind the McNair ‘Kings’, Eden and Kid and was off for eight months before winning his only race for Seamus Cahill in 29.01 (480) at Central Park.
There was another three months on the sidelines before a 27.48 winning debut at Henlow (460), and finally, in only his 12th race, spread over 13 months, the fastest win in the heats.
The pair will be joined in the final by Coolavanny Totti, trained by Reggie Alder. Also highlighted in the Abrey column, the near veteran has also overcome a broken hock to reach next Friday’s decider – just the 17th race of his career.
In the 400m Standard Final Chopchop Hope (Ballymac Vic-Auntie, Jul 15) seemingly moved closer to recognition at the tracks annual awards with a 23.76 victory. Yvonne Gaskin’s white and black now has eight wins and four seconds from 13 races at the track.
