So many of the best stories about greyhound racing are never reported, for a variety of reasons. Many don’t even seem relevant at the time. Other are particularly personal with a significance that is only obvious when told by the individual. We thought we would try a taster to a potential new section on the site by asking our three resident trainer columnists to reflect on the major points in their racing lives. (We have also stored up some of the worst moments). So, in reverse order, their 10th most significant moments were:
Portsmouth
GRAHAM HOLLAND Winning a kennel sweepstake at Portsmouth for my wife Nicky’s parents with a bitch called Nickys Spirit. That put me in their good books. The presentation was made by the esteemed, Jonathon Hobbs. I think we had won something like six sweepstakes in a row and racing manager Lee McAlpine was so angry, he swore we would never win another. And he was true to his word, he stopped staging them. Overall though, I used to love Portsmouth and trained my first NGRC winner there. Her name was Dunston Stacey. She got home by a short head and was promptly disqualified for fighting!
MARK WALLIS We haven’t always had the best of luck on Trainers Championship night and last year at Sittingbourne was memorable for all the wrong reasons!
We won our first TCM at Wimbledon and in 2010 sent what I considered a very strong team to Doncaster. It could have been better still had Kinda Ready not broken a toe when trialling for the event. Nevertheless Charlie (Lister OBE) was in great form and an odds-on favourite
Our chances diminished further when Aero Bolt was KO’d in the puppy race. No matter we only had to beat the champion sprinter of his era, Jimmy Lollie in the next race! Thankfully, Directors Wit ran a blinder. We followed up with a third (Eye Onthe Flash) and fourth (Corrig Vieri) and were still 10-1 chances going into the back four.
Mark Wallis and his Trainers Championship winning team of travelling staff: L-R Patrick Janssens, MW, Tom Bent, Cheryl Tillett and Pete Vernon (holding Eye Onthe Storm) – pic Steve Nash
We came back into the running with wins from Dalcash Scolari and Eye Eye Pickle but Charlie hit the front again with the winner of the seventh race, as our Kinda Easy finished last.
As we approached the last leg we had to win and Charlie’s dog Tyrur Speedy still had to be out the first three. Step up Eye Onthe Storm and a burst of breathtaking early pace destroyed a class field. As Storm raced clear, all eyes were on Tyrur Speedy and incredibly he was in trouble. Despite a brilliant effort, he finished fourth.
That night, Eye Onthe Storm’s victory was as memorable as any category one.
PAT ROSNEY In our early days with our own kennel, I took a phone call from Seamus Graham asking if I could get a few bitches for stud for a dog called Kegans Glory who had finished badly lame on a wrist in the Irish St. Leger.
Seamus sent the dog over as he thought his racing days were over and we struggled to get any bitches but we looked after him and I started to gallop him. He absolutely took off on the gallop and there was no sign of the wrist problem so I asked Seamus if I could race him. He said ‘ you might as well’. We weren’t racing NGRC in those days so I took him to Whitwood for a sprint.
Kegans Glory – pic Steve Nash
He flew in his trial, so I entered him in the Chesterton Derby which he won easily. The following week I entered him for an open race at Ellesmere Port which he won easily breaking the track record. There was no sign of the wrist, so we managed to a arrange a re-qualifying trial at Belle Vue on the Tuesday. The next morning he went back to Seamus who had entered him at Harolds Cross for the Friday night.
His form looked average, he hadn’t raced in Ireland for nearly six months, but Seamus and his owner Pat Whelan both backed him and he came out and beat Late Late Show over 570 yards. From first trial back to winning at Harolds Cross wasn’t much more than a month and he then went through one of the best spells of his career.
