...at Nottingham of course, where else!
ONE of the first things you learn when getting involved in greyhound racing is never to count your chickens etc but you could forgive Melton Mowbray-based trainer, Dave Firmager, for fancying his chances in the Nottingham Produce Stakes, where £15,000 awaits the winner next week.
Owner, trainer, breeder Firmager won the Swindon British-bred Two-Year-Old Produce Stakes, also worth £15,000, in July and has three runners in Friday’s semi-finals at Nottingham, including Romeo Metro, who beat the Paul Sallis-trained Mark My Words at the weekend, thus confirming the form of the Swindon final.
We rather fancy that Firmager will be keeping his breeding programme in full swing as the Metro and his Romeo Patrol put up the fastest times of the four second-round heats on Saturday in 30.04sec. and 30.11sec. respectively.
Fabulous Ferry finished third in his bid to give Firmager a treble at Nottingham but will be back for Friday’s semi-finals and chances are that, at the very least, the man from pork pie land will have at least two runners in another Produce Stakes decider.
British-bred Derby the highlight of a superb card on Sunday...
LAST Sunday it was the John Smith’s Kent Derby final at Sittingbourne and if that tremendous meeting wasn’t enough to give you an open race hangover, in the nicest possible way that is, there is more of the same down at the Medway track this Sunday!
No fewer than 13 opens are down for decision, ranging from a two-bend dash up to a testing eight-bender for the Knockies Hannah TV Trophy Final Challenge and, in all, races over six distances, a feast if ever there was.
Total prizemoney for the meeting exceeds £12,400, so plenty in it for the owners and trainers and there’s something for racegoers too, other than the racing, to look forward to, Sittingbourne are waiving admission charges for the night, so you are six quid up before you start!
...but truth is that breeding is still in decline...
WHILE everyone lately is waxing enthusiasm over British breeding, thanks in no small part to the Dunham Greyhound Centre’s sponsorship of British-bred Derbys at Newcastle and Sittingbourne, the bottom line is that home production has never been at such a low ebb.
The statistics are down, and still on the slide, both here and in Ireland with the trend across the pond brought on by the not so gradual decline of tracks in Britain.
Fewer tracks spells fewer meetings, with the inevitable knock-on effect that the demand for greyhounds has diminished considerably in recent years. Add to this the depressing economic climate, the price of fuel and everything else, and the upshot is that fewer people are in the market for dogs.
 The Dunham centre schooling track, and what a gallop! ‘A real buzz about the place for British-breds meeting’
DAVE and Jane Houfton, who run the superb Dunham Centre schooling kennels just outside Newick, said Saturday’s British-bred Derby night at Newcastle was ‘the best we have enjoyed more than any night at a greyhound track for years.’
“Everyone at Newcastle was absolutely brilliant, there were real doggy people there, the 6-Packers as well, and I’d like to say a special thanks to the groundstaff who did a monumental job on the track after the deluge that came down on Tyneside on Saturday afternoon and forced the BAGS card there a few hours earlier to be abandoned!” said Dave.
The Houftons sponsored the two big races on the night, The Dunham Greyhound Centre British-bred Derby (for all-aged) and the same title for a competition for puppies (see adjacent story).
Dunham Centre British-bred finals the highlight of a great night at Newcastle...
RUNNERS with the Pond prefix have done Newcastle trainer Harry Williams proud down the years and the latest star to emerge from his Bishop Auckland kennels is Pond Shefelia who, on Saturday, won the £1,000 Dunham Greyhound Centre British-bred Derby final at his home track.
To say she is the latest star to emerge from the Williams camp is not quite accurate, what we should say is that, coming from a line from which the offspring take a while to reach their true potential, is more the fact of the matter.
Pond Shefelia, bred by Williams, is a December 08 whelp by Hondo Black out of Pond Shakira, who won the National Oaks at Nottingham for Williams in September 2007 and who he rates as one of the best bitches he’s ever had. The litter comprised a one-sex lot of four bitches.
Dunham Greyhound Centre sponsoring British-bred Derbys there...
SUNDERLAND’S William Hill Festival of Racing has come and gone for another year - and what a festival it was! - and the greyhound feel-good factor in the north-east will continue to roll with Newcastle’s up-coming features for British-bred dogs.
Dave and Jane Houfton of the Dunham Greyhound Centre near Nottingham are generously sponsoring an all-aged Derby and also a Puppy Derby, both over 480 metres for 18 runners, and entries for each event close on the morning of July 28.
The competitions will run in tandem, with heats on July 30 and the finals a week later (both Saturdays so not on BAGS!) and the winners will earn £1,000 with all other finalists picking up £100 apiece.
PRIZEMONEY remains stagnant, there is still a them and us 'relationship' between owners and promoters, throw in the soaring cost of living, and therein are just three reasons why greyhound racing is currently in decline.
So says Bob Gilling, who recently marked his 30th year as secretary of the Greyhound Breeders' Forum and whose views are shared by many people in the sport. Yet, despite the troubled times greyhound racing is experiencing, Gilling remains as keen and as committed as he ever was.
"It is sad the way game has gone," he says, "and there are a number of other reasons to blame. Folk cite the recession but it is the same for any business, everyone is finding it tough out there but greyhound racing is unquestionably suffering more than most.
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