It’s crunch time at Wimbledon in Derby semis... 

FOUR trainers with runners in Saturday’s Derby semi-finals have tasted success in the premier classic at Wimbledon, Charlie Lister, six times a winner and in danger of an inquiry on behalf of the Monopolies Commission, Nick Savva, four times a winner and Mark Wallis and Dolores Ruth one apiece.

Been there, got the T-shirt etc but there is little more the trainers can do with their charges on the run-up to Saturday when the runners are faced with their third run in eight days. Gruelling is not the word and the semi-finals will be as much a survival of the fittest battle rather than one of just pure speed and the obligatory huge slice of Lady Luck!

Numerically speaking the money would have to be with the Ruth kennel, her three Razldazl dogs have done her proud up to now and none is showing any chinks in their armour, all three have been bombing out at Plough Lane and getting home well, with the exception of Bugatti in the last round. 

FORTY years in greyhound journalism and I cannot remember being at such a low ebb. 

In the early 70s the sport was buzzing. More than 50 tracks in the UK were treating us to some great action.

Brilliant performers such as Patricias Hope, Jimsun, Myrtown, Balliniska Band and Lacca Champion were thrilling the public and crowds of around 30,000 regularly attended Derby finals, which were run on lush turf at White City, London.

We were also drenched in publicity, thanks to the Greyhound Express, The Sporting Life, Sporting Chronicle, Greyhound Owner and Greyhound Magazine, while the Mirror, Mail, Express and Sun gave dog racing brilliant extra national coverage.

Inevitably, the opening of betting shops in 1961 was gradually starting to eat away at crowd levels.

This hungry off-course threat that would, over the years, lead to half of our stadiums being devoured was still not being treated seriously. 

SATURDAY’S Derby semi-finals will be run back to back at Wimbledon with the second and last qualifier due off at 8.50, almost two hours earlier than last weekend’s third round final eliminator won by Razldazl Bugatti.

Not surprisingly there were some complaints from trainers over the late off times last weekend, curious then that one well-known kennelhand, who faced a three-hour drive back to his kennels, hung around to witness the quarter-final draw!

The bookmakers, Derby sponsors William Hill in particular, are having a field day pricing up the eventual outcome of the competition with Ireland’s Dolores Ruth, three-handed in the semis, offered at all kinds of odds, including 50-1 about her trio finishing 1,2,3 in the final on Saturday week! Worth a quid?

Also featured on Saturday will be three heats of the Derby Plate and three qualifiers for the William Hill Champion Hurdle, where Irish National winner, Olivers Twist, is 6-4 to win the stake outright - as  well he might. Worth two quid!

FIVE Irish-trained, one bitch and the defending champion are in the mix as the William Hill.com Derby reaches the last twelve semi-final stage at Wimbledon on Saturday and the bookmakers say that the following weekend the title will be won by a raider from across the pond, namely one of the three Dolores Ruth Razldazls, Jayfkay!

He is a 5-2 shot to win the Derby, the same price he was before last night’s quarter-finals, and while he continues to fly out under the lids and remains the one unbeaten hound left in the competition it is easier to make a case for his winning the competition than it is for him not to!

But back to reality and there is still a long way to go but there was more than a tad of confidence in her tone when Ms Ruth stated last night that Jayfkay will not be phased by the punishing schedule of three runs in a week, he will be fine she said in so many words.

Her two other qualifiers, Bugatti and Rioga, both ran sound races in qualifying and they will be joined at Plough Lane on Saturday by the two other Irish runners, Michael O’Donovan’s Judicial Ruling and Fraser Black’s Droopys Jet.

The longer the competition goes on the more the Irish dogs look the ones to beat and we are not forgetting that the 2011 winner Taylors Sky is still in there punching away. He is Charlie Lister’s sole survivor but well though he ran last night he doesn’t quite look the dog he was 12 months ago,  dollop of humble pie coming our way?

Dean Childs’ Droopys Loner is the one bitch remaining in the event and has been a model of consistency throughout but this early-paced railer could cause havoc in the second semi-final where she is drawn in trap five!

It has been a splendid competition so far with none of the controversy which has been synonymous with the event on so many occasions and the semi-finals can’t come quickly enough, although the dogs might not entirely agree with that.

Findlay champing at the bit as re-born Coventry looms closer... 

WITH the countdown to the re-opening of Coventry less than a week away new promoter Harry Findlay was bursting at the seams yesterday as he stood on the terraces observing a marathon trials session, all 52 of them!

“The place is buzzing and we’ve not even started racing yet,” said Findlay, whose unashamed enthusiasm for greyhound racing has never been questioned and whose passion remains as strong as it was in the Chicita Banana days!

However, his feet were firmly on the ground when we spoke to him yesterday and he had some good news for punters at the Brandon Stadium on tote retention, the amount a track deducts from tote pools before dividends are declared. 

Derby outsider in with a squeak of reaching the semis... 

TREWMOUNT SNAP might well be the complete outsider of the two dozen runners left in the Derby but his Alfreton, Derbyshire trainer, Darren Fretwell, pays no attention to the bookmakers and is hopeful that his lightly-raced 80lb whopper could well qualify for the semi-finals from tonight’s quarters at Wimbledon.

“I’m delighted he’s survived this far and I’m hoping that I’m learning about him all the time,” said Fretwell. “I’ve changed his diet in the hope it might help him stay on better and I’ve also cut down on his work, I was walking him two miles in the morning and the same in the evening and also putting him on the jogging machine.”

The Snap ought to be as fit as a flea with such a tough regime but, like the diet, the walking and the ‘jogging’ has been addressed by the trainer. “I was giving him too much work and the acid test will come tonight, the dog gets lots of love and attention and if he traps out there’s a good chance he’ll qualify – I don’t think he’ll come last!” 

Clean sweep for Ruth trio in Derby – and at Shelbourne!

THOUGHT we were hearing things last night when Sky announced that Razldazl Jayfkay had won his third round Derby heat by three-and-a-quarter lengths from Graigues Orchard when the naked eye suggested it was more like a rapidly-diminishing length or so at the wire.

A check on the Wimbledon results sheet via the GBGB website this morning showed an amendment to the distance, the winning margin was actually three-quarters of a length in 28.48sec., joint third best clock of the night and shared with that grand old warrior Boher Paddy.

On a night when seven of the eight heats were clumped together time-wise between 28.46sec. and 28.62sec. we were left wondering how the Jayfkay dog had 'lost' 40 spots from his record-breaking 28.08sec. second round win a week earlier?


But as Charlie Lister said on here the other day it can prove folly to pay too much attention to times so we would offer a word of caution over Dolores Ruth dog’s performance. He didn’t quite come out under the lids as he did seven days ago but still ran his customary reliable race, away well and never headed.


Times were probably the last thing on the mind of Ms Ruth, who was at Shelbourne where her three runners, Kingo, Razldazl George and Razdazl Will finished 1-2-3 in the Betfair 600 final in a race worth 25,000 euros to the winner. All three, incidentally, are out of that remarkable, now retired from breeding, brood, Razldazl Pearl.


So a good night indeed for the Rathangan trainer, whose two other Derby runners at Wimbledon, Razldazls Rioga and Bugatti, also won their heats in more or less trap to line fashion. Crunch time though comes on Tuesday when the qualifiers face their second of three Derby races in a week in the quarter-finals.


And what a race the quarters has thrown up, a potential battle royal between Bubbly Phoenix and Razldazl Jayfkay! Phoenix was by far the fastest winner last night, posting 28.19se.(.10 fast) in a seven lengths plus victory in the opening heat while the other seven heats were run on normal going - nothing got near Paul Young’s dog on the watch.


Phoenix and Jayfkay are the only wide seeds in Tuesday’s race and are drawn five and six respectively. Both break quickly, both have raw early speed and this is a contest very much not for the feint-hearted!

CHARLIE LISTER, you don’t need us to remind you, is not one for pulling his punches and we sympathise with his latest gripe over Wimbledon’s decision to stage the eighth and final third round heat of the Derby tomorrow at 10.40pm!

With no split kennelling at Plough Lane on Saturday and all runners on the card summoned to check in at 5.30pm, the six dogs in that last heat would have been kennelled for almost five hours before being jacketed up in preparation for battle.

“It’s an awful long time to be locked away and it also makes for a long day for us trainers in this heat,” said Lister, who brought the matter to the attention of the GBGB. “They called Wimbledon but at the end of the day the off time remains unaltered.”

In today’s Racing Post Lister said of the late late show that it’s “stupid that the Derby races can’t be run earlier. We won’t get away from Wimbledon until gone 11 o’clock and by the time I get back to the kennels, and stopping twice on the way for the dogs, I’ll be bumping into the milkman!”

He hit the nail on the head when attributing the late off times (the last three Derby heats will be run after 10pm) to “Sky dictating the times of the races.”

All of which smacks of commercial expediency with little or no concern for the well being of dogs locked up from 6pm.

*Norah McEllistrim won’t be going to Wimbledon tomorrow after all, her qualifier, French Blue, was withdrawn lame this morning, leaving just one wide runner in the opening heat, Bubbly Phoenix!

Dolores and Charlie are as one, “it’s too far away”

THE longer run to the new pick-up point at Wimbledon is detrimental to the runners, so say two trainers - and there are others - with Charlie Lister and Dolores Ruth in particular stating that the extra 15 metres or so to the drop was an unnecessary move.

“Wimbledon said in so many words that the move was for the benefit of the diners in the corporate boxes, fearing that an accident might happen right in front of them at the old pick-up,” said Lister, “but as far I could see when I was there last Saturday the boxes were practically empty!”

As for the physical affect on the dogs Lister said that “it’s obvious if they are running further than they really need to they are bound to come off that bit more tired. Why they moved the pick-up, and let’s forget about the diners, is beyond me. It was a daft move, and so was the GBGB ruling that electrolytes can no longer be given to greyhounds at the track.”

SCOTTISH Derby winner Barefoot Allstar has tweaked a muscle in his right shoulder and was withdrawn yesterday afternoon from the William Hill Derby at Wimbledon.

“It’s nothing too serious but he’s a little tender and there’s no way I’d think about running him on Saturday, especially with three runs in a week coming up,” said trainer Paul Hennessy.

“He’s back home now and the plan is to get him ready for the Irish Derby, but he’ll have a good rest in between. He’s already a Derby winner and I couldn’t ask more of him, it’s a pity but hey there’s always another day."