Timmy visiting Doodles in retirement
GRAHAM HOLLAND When my son Timmy, who is now 17, was a toddler, we grew very attached to a young pup we bred. He named him Doodles after one of the characters in the Tweenies. Doodles went schooling and picked up a nasty tendon injury behind his wrist. We took him to a leading vet who told us that he would never race and he offered to put him to sleep. Before I had left that morning, Timmy had said, ‘make sure you bring my Doodles home’.
I didn’t have the heart to give up on the pup and got a second opinion from another vet Alessando Piras. He agreed to operate, but it was a very expensive operation, one that couldn’t really afford at the time. The operation was a success and Doodles eventually qualified.
He was due to make his debut in an unraced stake on a Thursday night at Clonmel. Nicki had given birth to Rachel two days before and discharged herself on the night to see him run, against the advice of the nurses. She arrived at the track, and ran across the car park just in time to see Doodles lead at the first bend and win.
He went on to be a top class dog who reached the semi finals of the Easter Cup. Much against my better judgement, I refused £20,000 for him – the reality was, I wasn’t allowed to sell him. Doodles eventually retired as a pet and the kids visited him until he eventually died of old age.
MARK WALLIS My seventh best moment in racing is really a compilation of various ‘firsts’. I remember after a few days helping Linda and Doug out at the kennels, Linda taught me how to groom ‘properly’. There was only about a dozen or less dogs at the kennels and she asked me to groom one on my own. She was an old girl running in the first race at Swaffham. To memory, her racing name was called Well Timed. She was the outsider of the field in the graded race but absolutely gagged up. I was so proud seeing her win. Think that was the moment I decided I wanted to do this full time.
In 1992 I decided to have a go on my own with a small permit licence and me and my dad had some wooden kennels built at the back of my dad’s house. Linda wished me well and said that if ever she was in a position to offer me a full time job in the future she would.
I had four dogs and graded them at Swaffham, I was so nervous and proud when I had my first runner Cool Billy in a C4 (short four bend distance). I was praying he wouldn’t get beat a distance or go lame. But he smashed out and won easily. WOW!! My first runner in my name and he won!. I had another two runners the next meeting and they both won as well. As I was walking back to the paddock Tom Smith the promoter and racing manager stuck his head out of the box and shouted to me “are you taking the piss! Make the most of them as you won’t have another winner for a long time” He was partly right as we were virtually making the numbers up for the next few weeks!
As a professional trainer my proudest moment was when I took over the licence officially from Linda and the name ‘Mark Wallis’ (Who?) was in the Walthamstow programme for the first time.
We had a few runners on the card and that night we won the A1 and A2 , the S1 and S2 , plus an M1 graded marathon. I can remember hearing one of the old punters mutterinmgh “it must be Linda still doing the dogs.” After Walthamstow closed we moved to Harlow and my first runner won there. To memory, I’m pretty sure the same happened when we moved to Yarmouth. More recently, and perhaps more noteworthy, Fairest Royal won the first ever race at the newly contstucted, Towcester.
PAT ROSNEY When we started out, I never dreamed that a small kennel like ours could ever qualify for the Trainers Championship, it was an event you would watch every year and never thought you would be a part of it, but in 2008 we finally managed it. It helped that Belle Vue were staging lots of opens and of our 150 winners, probably 70 were at Belle Vue.
The Trainers Championship meeting was at Sheffield early the following year and it was the year Charlie (Lister OBE) ran away with it, winning seven of the eight races plus having a none runner. But we finished fourth and it was one of the highlights of my training career.
We have now qualified four times, but that first time was very special going head to head with the top six trainers in the country.
