
Three winners last Saturday night with Peter , River and Awayday Rock all scoring in good style. Peter came through with his customary late burst to win his A4 whilst River put his early pace to good use to win for the first time in A7. River finds Notts 500m at the upper end of his stamina limit , so although he got away with missing his break on this occasion , he'd not be one that would be coming from behind when stepped up in class. Salacres Moore was an unlucky loser in her A3 and as you'll read later in the blog she would soon atone for that defeat. Awayday Rock was off the card for most of the latter part of 2016 but has now won three times in 2017 , a testament to the work the team at the kennels have put in to get him back on track.
Just the four runners on Monday and though we didn't have any winners , Costa did run on well to qualify in second place for the Tagg Memorial Trophy Final. He looks up against it in what is a tough final on Monday evening , but he's fit and well and will be giving it everything he's got.
Onto Tuesdays BAGS meeting and we landed a very welcome four timer. Romeo Blitz took some time to settle into life at Nottingham but he won again in A4 company and has now won ten times for us. He's a dog that always seems to go off at big enough prices but you can never safely rule him out. Salacres Foxy won well in A6 whilst Destiny was a very impressive winner of her A4. I like all the dogs and bitches from the Zero Ten x Salacres Gem litter and I think given a little time they will all be competing in higher class than they currently find themselves. Destiny trapped out well on Tuesday and put these rivals to the sword as she scored by 5 1/2 lengths in 3057 (+20). If you'd asked me prior to Dougies A2 i'd have told you even money looked a very short price for a dog not without his issues. We're a little bit between a rock and a hard place with Dougie at present. Sprint opposition are proving a little quick in the early pace department whilst he's not quite coming home as strong as we'd like against 500m opponents. That said he went well clear here and though coming back to them late on he won by an ever diminishing head. The winning time of 3102 calculated tells you he'll need to get a bit stronger though to hold off A2 runners on a regular basis.
We headed to Sheffield on Tuesday evening to give David a 480m prep race ahead of a tilt at the Three Steps To Victory and were to be treble handed in the British Bred Puppy race. David finished fifth in his race , the look around will serve him well ahead of a tough Three Steps heat on Tuesday. Olympic , Incredible Flyer and Koeman all lined up in the aforementioned puppy race with Olympic (2nd) , Koeman (3rd) and Flyer (4th). They were all beaten by Carl Perry's Geelo Monty. He looks a pup with a very bright future and will take some beating in the British Bred Puppy competition which gets underway this Tuesday at Sheffield. It's worth noting though that Monty does have a 3 month age advantage on our pups , a not insignificant stat at this age and i'll be disappointed if our pups haven't also taken a huge step forward on their current form come July and August of this year. I'd like to wish all the puppys and their connections good luck for the competition this week. Competitions like this , and the chance of winning decent prizemoney , are the culmination of almost 2 years hard work. It was disappointing that Sheffield didn't receive more entries for the competition but i'm glad that they got the event on. Those of us who did enter our pups didn't deserve to be punished for the lack of entries from others. I would urge anybody breeding British to support the British Bred events whenever possible.
Onto this weekend and it really was a case of seconditus to start Friday as we filled that position in each of the first 3 races. Awayday Rock , River and Aneto all found one too good in their resepective races. We had to wait until the final race of the evening to get ourselves on the winners podium but it was a performance well worth waiting for. I am finding myself liking Salacres Moore with each passing performance. Moore is a very clever bitch , will pass on the inside or outside and spots a gap well. She appears at this stage that she stays quite well so you never know how she could turn out.
We had two winners on Saturday night and two seconds from just eight runners. Salacresbenidorm won his A4 in good style and was followed home by Romeo Blitz to give a Salacres forecast of £10.05. Later on the card we seen something we'd never see. Salacres Ussain is one of our Gem pups but spent the early part of his career with our friends in Ireland the Comerford family. Ussain has pace , there is no doubt about that , the trouble is he doesn't like to use it. The nearest Ussain has come to a win was when landing the local village pub's high jump competition. Big mention has to go to Gaynor who has put countless hours into ensuring that Ussain would somehow finally win a race. Last night albeit in A6 company Ussain finally won at the 28th attempt. Salacres ran well in A2 company in the final race of the night , he was beaten just a length and put up a personal best time of 3031 (+30).
Thanks for reading and also thanks for all the support i've received recently from people i've spoke to around the tracks. It means alot to know that I have the backing of most genuine greyhound folk around the country.