AUTHOR: Lewis Williams
EMILY WALLIS: Greyhound Derby BLOG 7
EMILY WALLIS continues her blogging on the Star Sports Greyhound Derby with the second round now complete. Emily reflects on round two and also looks ahead to the 8 round three heats on Saturday with the countdown clock now ticking down to the final on Saturday 29 June ….
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⭐ Welcome back once again! There’s plenty to catch up on as we now have just 48 runners left in the Derby and things have definitely heated up again, writes EMILY WALLIS. Last Friday and Saturday saw some fantastic racing around Towcester, there weren’t too many shocks in the second round and thankfully the majority of the ‘big guns’ progressed through, particularly last Friday where all favourites won apart from in 2 heats where the second favourite won.
⭐ Before we get into the racing, there has been great work going on at Towcester collecting money for the retired dogs which is so important in helping the charities do their amazing work in finding these former athletes their deserving forever homes. Wayne and Liz Mazey as well as Carly Philpott and Gail May have all brought retired greyhounds to Towcester trying to promote the breed and raise money, last year a fantastic £8500 was raised. There will be a special guest this week with the very popular Pablo the Pup making an appearance at the track very happy to meet all the racegoers and trying to raise more money.
⭐ For me the standout performance on Friday has to be De Lahdedah, he had lengths to make up on long time leader Churchfield Syd going down the back, who himself is a very fast type, but absolutely flew home to pick him up and win his heat, also in a quick 28.91. He may have had luck on his side in his first round heat where there was a lot of trouble but was so impressive last Friday night and he is now 8/1 joint favourite with King Memphis to win outright. In a post race interview with Joe Conneely, trainer Liam Dowling said: “He can really come home this fella, he does need to brush up on his trapping but we’re into round three and that’s all that matters.”
⭐ On a night with a lot of flying times from the winners, the quickest was Superfast Gorden for Pat Buckley, he got into an epic battle with multiple Irish classic winner, Clonbrien Treaty, down the back but looked a lot stronger than the week before eventually pulling away for the win in a very fast 28.71. Only two spots behind him though and the winner of the very first second round heat was Swords Rex; after a while off the track he really does look back to his old self that we saw during the Derby last year, he absolutely flew from the traps and will need to do so again on Saturday – but we’ll get onto that heat!
⭐ Of course the defending champion is still very much in the competition and is unbeaten so far despite Graham Holland saying in my Star Sports kennel visit before the competition that he will be brought on to improve throughout. He won a fairly warm second round heat last Friday coming away from trap 1 well and leading all the way. Behind him was Bockos Thunder for Kevin Boon who hasn’t yet been out of the first three in any of his races in the UK and could be one to keep qualifying.
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⭐ The dog who’s been the best model of consistency throughout the Derby so far has to be Cooliogold who has won both rounds with identical 4.07 sectionals and a 29.17 overall time, quite remarkable to do the exact same run twice when we are talking about hundredths of a second in racing. Trainer Maxine Locke has two other greyhounds joining ‘Coolio’ in the next round, she said: “We are enjoying every minute of the Derby! Coolio is doing amazing, he’s led up two really nice early paced dogs in King Capaldi and Road Exile so far and is showing his will to win. On Saturday he really needs to trap again to clear Unreal Bruiser on his immediate inside. Droopys Pivotel is an improving pup but is really taking the Derby in his stride and we know there’s a lot of ability there and Coss Tokyo still needs to learn a bit but has the stamina to hopefully run on and qualify. Overall, we are happy with our draws as we seem to have avoided the hottest heats.”
⭐ I must mention it was a great weekend for our own kennel and the MWD Partnership – we had three going into the second round and came away with three winners. Newinn Syd improved from his first round run and wasn’t stopping in front after trapping well from trap 1, Crafty Shivoo was back to her brilliant best extending her unbeaten run round Towcester to 8 wins from 8 races and absolutely flew on Saturday just a spot off the track record jointly held by King Memphis and Droopys Clue. Finally, Whyaye Man or ‘Ozzy’ as we know him (a cryptic geordie reference!) showed his love of Towcester too picking up Grouchos Duke to win his heat. I can’t stress enough the enjoyment and pride you feel seeing your dogs win in the Derby, it really highlights how special it is and the meaning of the competition to everyone involved in the sport.
⭐ It was also nice seeing some of the older dogs winning on Saturday and looking back to their bests too. First up was Ballinabola Ed who celebrates his fourth birthday this month however hasn’t had a lot of racing in the last year by any means due to injury, he absolutely flew from the traps on Saturday and would have been a special victory for connections who have nursed him back. Ballymac Finn was another one who made use of a nice draw and was impressive in his heat. He was an Irish Derby runner up almost 2 years ago and a semi-finalist last year in the English Derby but, believe it or not, Saturday was his first win around the track and if he keeps running like he is then he could go far again.
⭐ There will once again be another Twitter (X) space on Thursday hosted by Billy Brennan and myself to catch up with connections on how their dogs ran in the second round and what they make of their third round draws as well as other people involved in the Derby. It again proved popular last week with plenty of people tuning in and it’s a great excitement builder for the weekend. Set a reminder for the live session below!
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⭐ Moving onto this Saturday’s third round heats there are some real hot ones! You wouldn’t be disappointed in the slightest if heat 7 was this year’s Derby final and it’s just a shame we are going to lose three of the dogs in it. In trap one we see King Memphis, original antepost favourite, trap two sees last year’s Derby final favourite in Swords Rex who looks just as good this year, trap three is Newinn Syd who can certainly compete with the very best – with those three drawn out alone on Saturday it was going to be the hottest heat. But following them in trap 4 was Azurite who was an impressive winner of her second round heat, in trap 5 the highly the regarded Road Exile and in trap 6 Ballinabola Ed, just mentioned. That is set to be one of the races of the year and connections would have cringed at seeing it, including me!
⭐ Heat 6 is also a real scorcher. It includes Crafty Shivoo, Scaglietti, defending champion Gaytime Nemo, De Lahdedah, early pace sort Miracle for Patrick Jannsens and King Combs for Rab Mcnair who is still yet to be out of the first 3 in his whole career. This is another heat to saviour as they are all extremely classy and ran exceptionally well in their second round heats. But, to win the Derby you have to beat the best and whoever wins these two heats will be doing just that. All the heats are good and none will be easy to win, it is what you expect at this stage but I do think this is a very hot Derby and truly everyone would take that 3rd place qualifying spot now.
⭐ It’s hard to believe next week is already the quarter-final stage but after racing on Saturday the draw will be taking place for them once the field has once again been halved. This time however, it will be broadcast on Ayozat TV and won’t be one to miss! We will then just have 4 races to draw out and I can’t wait for the racing on Saturday to find out who will be in that draw!
⭐ Best of luck to everyone involved in a runner on Saturday night. It’s not going to be a night to miss with so many stars on show and, of course with them all running on the same night, if you head to the track on Saturday you will see the eventual Derby winner in action! I’ll be back next week with more news.
EMILY
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