Due to other developments on the site, our series exploring the highs and lows of greyhound racing as experienced by our three trainer columnists, has run on longer than we had hoped. So to finish off the ‘worst moments’ section, we are stringing the last three together.
Next week, we will follow up with the three most memorable times. . .
NO.3
PAT ROSNEY
It isn’t always racing that bring the most upsets, you can have your fair share of it through breeding. God knows its hard enough to buy good greyhounds, and when you have a brood that can throw them, it is extra special. But breeding has its highs and lows and one of the biggest breeding disappointments is quite recent.
At the end of 2015 we were looking forward with great excitement to two new litters out of Little Flame and Rebellious Queen. Flame, who is the mother of Take The Crown was mated to Crash but as whelping time approached we realised that all was not well. She eventually produced one dead pup.
The situation was worse with Rebellious Queen who had thrown Newyork City Boy, Latin Charm and Camp Joker in her second litter. As she drew closer to whelping time, it was obvious all was not well. She was rushed into vet Paul Evans who opened her up and found a dead pup inside. She was also bleeding internally. He managed to save her life, but had to spay her to do so. We are relieved that he managed to save her, but it is still an absolute sickener.
REBELLIOUS QUEEN (T1) winning an Oaks heat: Pic Steve Nash
GRAHAM HOLLAND
When I was at Portsmouth we had a lovely little grader in the kennel called No Picnic. He wasn’t the fastest, but was very genuine and whenever he was in A4, he won. One night he broke his hock at the first bend. We took him back to the paddock and the owner told me to have him put down. I was gutted and we offered to pay the vet’s bill. But the only simply said, ‘no, I said put him down.’ I was absolutely gutted. Thankfully, we don’t have to put up with owners like that anymore.
MARK WALLIS
I don’t think any trainer can pick their five worst moments and not include an injury story. But like losers, they are part of the game.
We’ve had many, but if I had to pick one, it would probably be the one sustained by Eye Onthe Storm. He had been bought through the late Liz Body for £10,000 and was the best dog in the kennel in 2009 when he won the Puppy Classic followed by the Puppy Classic at Nottingham.
The following year he won the Gymcrack in a new track record at Hall Green and was made favourite for the English Derby. Just before the competition got underway, the dog’s owner John Keefe asked to meet me. He told me that he had been offered a ‘near six figure’ sum for the dog, even though Storm only had one testicle which was high in his groin and he would have had no value as a stud dog.
After a bit of thought, I suggested that he should take the money, if for no other reason than the fact that his Wimbledon record was nowhere near as good as some other tracks. John went against my advice and decided to run him.
It is now history that Storm broke his leg in the first round and never raced again. Things ended on a very bad note with John Keefe, though nothing to do with that incident.
Storm did not have the right temperament to be re-homed, he was a little too keen for his own good, but we have kept him as a pet in the kennel and he still gets his regular walks from the other owners.
EYE ONTHE STORM Pic Steve Nash
NO.2
PAT ROSNEY
It is hard for any greyhound trainer to talk about bad moments without including injuries. They are part of the game, but some hit you harder than others. The injury to Newinn Yolo when he was in a strong position in the English Derby was sickening, because it didn’t just cost us the Derby, which I really believe he was capable of winning, but chances at other races too, like the Irish Derby and the Select Stakes.
If I had to choose the worst of them though, it would probably be Take The Crown who broke his hock at Sheffield.
We bred him ourselves and he had won the Stud Book Trophy at Nottingham, and the Produce Stakes at Swindon clocking 28.34. He had done 27.43 for 480m at Sheffield and 28.03 in a 480m trial at Wimbledon, but in my heart of hearts, I always knew his future was over six bends.
He is a son of Westmead Hawk and I am convinced he would have been a superstar over 6 bends. Sadly it was never meant to be.
Take The Crown with L-R: trainer Pat Rosney, his partner Julie McCombe and owner Darren Price after the Swindon Produce Stakes Photo: Steve Nash
GRAHAM HOLLAND
My granddad and my dad were both greyhound men. Dad was a dairyman by profession but at one stage ran Weymouth dog track. He did everything from being racing manager to hare driver and training half the runners. He died in 2006 just as we were starting to make our way in Ireland. The night after he died, we had two runners at Shelbourne Park and they both won. I remember thinking how much dad would have loved to have been there.
MARK WALLIS
This game is about people as much as greyhounds and the tragic death of Mitch Millward last year still feels very raw. Mitch was really one of Paul Young’s owners, he only ever had a couple of dogs with us, but he was also a very good friend.
We would see him regularly on the open race circuit or meet him for a drink and a chat about dog racing. Mitch would be the first to congratulate you when you won, and the first to commiserate if he beat you.
That’s why Adageo Bob winning the Mitch Millward Essex Vase featured as one of my favourite moments, while Mitch’s death is among my worst.
When people die, other people say nice things about them because it is the right thing to do. In Mitch’s case, he genuinely was a lovely man with no malice or grudges against anyone.
The way Mitch conducted himself has to be his greatest legacy.
MILLWARDS TEDDY with owners Mitch Millward (left) and John White after his Summer Stayers Classic win.
Monmore 19th June 2015. Photo: Steve Nash
NO.1
PAT ROSNEY
Its bad enough to miss out on a big race by injury, or even miss out on a huge lump of a career. The worst though is surely having a potential champion who never gets to race at all.
The best we had which falls into this category was Take The Crown’s litter brother, Lawful Force. He was owned by my brother Pete and a group of his friends in the police. He was a fabulous looking 80 pound black dog and in his qualifying trials, he was doing slightly better times than Take the Crown over the sprint distance.
He only ever ran three qualifying trials, and the last of them was a 16.31 at Perry Barr. He broke a foreleg in his next trial. He was operated on and is now living out a fabulous life in retirement.
GRAHAM HOLLAND
My sister Val Treviss loved dogs and trained a few at Poole. She used to take a lot of my more difficult dogs and took great delight in winning races with them. On one occasion I gave her a pup whose mother had died and the litter had been fostered by a sheep dog. I don’t know whether the rearing had any effect but then litter weren’t very genuine. I gave one of the dog to Val who was determined to win a race with him. Unfortunately, Val developed cancer, and one of her last visits to a track was to see the pup run. It turned out to be the only race that the pup ever won.
A year or so earlier, Val had brought a puppy who she named George Is Gorgeous. He was a really promising young dog and I entered him in an unraced stake at Clonmel, which he won, seven months after Val’s death. George was the best dog she had ever owned, it was so sad that she wasn’t there to share the moment at the presentation. Val’s daughter Mandy still has George as a pet.
MARK WALLIS
The closure of Walthamstow is my worst moment in greyhound racing. I used to go there as a kid and I loved the place. When Linda was offered a contract there, it was the height of being a greyhound trainer as far as I was concerned, so to train there myself later on, was unbelievable. A dream come true.
We had heard rumours of the closure in 2005, but weren’t too concerned, ‘they’ve been saying we are going to close for the last 20 years’. As the rumours got stronger, we arranged a meeting with the track management who told us ‘I am not saying that we won’t sell-up in the future, but at this stage there are no plans to sell’
Lying bastards – they had already reached agreement to sell the place 18 months earlier. I will never forgive the Chandler family for the way they acted. Even then, they could have sold the stadium to greyhound interests. After all the money they had made out of the game over three generations, they could have done a deal.
I remember getting the confirmation of the closure – by fax – just before I was due to leave to Romford for trials. It was a very quiet journey.
Sarah and I found ourselves being directed past the stadium by the satnav after the awards night. There were familiar bits of the old stadium surrounded by a ghetto. I felt like crying.
