Towcester RM Andy Lisemore was delighted with the volume and standard of entries for the Bet365 Puppy Oaks which gets underway on Sunday.
He said: “It is a bit of a niche race, looking for bitch puppies, so we pitched it at 36 and got 32 which is very pleasing. There are some decent entries too including a couple from Damien Matthews in Ireland.”
It is the first UK confined event for ’22 whelps, all of which makes Queen Dusty’s appearance more unusual as she has already contested three Category One finals: the Romford Puppy Cup, Oxford Puppy Collar and last week’s English Puppy Derby.
There is further home born interest in David Mullins’ unbeaten Fabulous Terra and Kevin Hutton’s royally bred, Coppice Ella and Dreamin Bea.
Man of the moment, *Gold Collar winning trainer Dave Lee would like to see consideration given to an on-line industry museum.
He said: “I think we should have something for our heritage. My original idea was for a mobile museum which could travel from track to track. That would be very difficult to keep going so it makes a lot more sense for an on-line version where anyone with an interest could read about the history of the sport with photographs and stories. I also think the best people to do it would be you (Greyhound Star).”
Response: The Star certainly has an enormous photo (x ,000s) and written archive (bound newspapers, racecards and computer banked data), all of which cannot be sustained ad infinitum. It would also be possible, as Dr Louise Powell is doing in the North East, to produce an audio library from people able to descrbribe the early days of the sport. Whether it would be feasible, or would receive adequate support from the industry as a whole, is, at best, questionable.
* Laughil Jess returns to Crayford in a Saturday morning open. . . from trap one!
We have received an email from reader Dennis Hodgkins regarding a story we ran yesterday.
