After a quiet few weeks it was good to see the kennel back to form with plenty of winners both open racing and graded. Indeed two wins at Romford were a big talking point when on Wednesday Cotton Pants took a supporting open over 400m on Champion Stakes final night in a fastest of the year 23.68, this was incredibly eclipsed when our Ashakiran fairly bolted up in a heat of a Maiden 400m heat in a blistering 23.62, yes the track is speedy at the moment but they were two sensational runs. Ashakiran only won an A7 at Towcester six days earlier although her 28.30 was close to feeling the wrath of the stewards and she certainly looks a bitch on fire at present. It's a good class Maiden final on Friday and the loss of the red jacket means it won't be a penalty kick for her either.

 

We only travelled to Doncaster with one dog on Saturday for the Yorkshire St Leger, now worth a decent £12,000 to the winner, the dog in question was none other than the defending champion Rubys Rascal and from a hot heat with a tough draw in trap 4 I was delighted that he scrambled second place to qualify for the semi finals. In a thrilling race four runners turned off the last bend within a length of each other and Rascal had done a lot of running, after a missed break and traffic at the first bend, just to be in a position to make the first three and a late thrust saw him just denied for a win behind Karlow Turbo but equally he was only just in front of two other rivals who dead heated for 3rd place. He's through and hopefully a better draw for Saturday's semi final can see him make the final, the two dogs that dead heated now face a run off tonight. This rule in my opinion is outdated and needs looking at as welfare is key to our sport's future success so how can you let two dogs run another 660m (+ another 200m to the drop) two days later with one running another race five days later, it's not right and this kind of situation should be decided by a toss of a coin, end of! Sensibly in the last heat, which was stopped in the interest of safety, the five connections decided, no thank you for a run off, and drew lots to see who went through to the next round. Harsh on the ones that get eliminated but totally fair, if it was me whose dog got eliminated this way I would be annoyed for ten minutes, move on and be thankful that our dog doesn't have to endure a quick run two or three days later followed by another quick one if he qualified. It's simply too much for them, the Derby is a different story where you have three runs in a week, you are totally prepared for this as a trainer and can skilfully guide them through.

 

Amazingly for the first time in nearly twenty years we are not involved in the East Anglian Derby that starts at Yarmouth this week. Defending champion Clondoty Alex will not takes his place as the schedule is just to tough for him now he is approaching 4 1/2 years old. He proved with a miraculous win on Friday at Romford he's still a force but his career is now reaching its final stages. Both Alex and Calco Flyer (runs at Sheffield tonight) will be aimed at the RPGTV sponsored Veteran competition at Henlow at the end of the month, that will be their last races. We should have some runners for the supporting events at Yarmouth including Scolari Sound (also runs at Sheffield tonight) who won the Sprint Final last year.

 

I've been looking to buy some nice staying bitches of late of mainly for Towcester and we have a nice one up on our for sale page in Castlemary Jess, sensibly priced she could be anything over the trip. Later this week another two or three potential stayers will be up for sale. Last week we had loads of winners that were sold off our 'For Sale' page including Tangled Upinblue, Shlowdown Sally, Swift Windmill, Ashakiran not forgetting legends like Adageo Bob were sold through this website, don't miss out!