At The Races... with Ian Bland

Ian Bland, Kentish Times tipster
Thursday, February 2, 2012
11:04 AM

All the latest greyhound racing news from Crayford Dog Track

The Ladbroke Golden Jacket gets under way with six first-round heats on Saturday evening.

Thirty-six of the very best stayers from around the country will go to traps all hoping to land the £15,000 winner’s prize. Unusually, there are no Irish raiders this year.

Last Saturday evening saw five trial stakes races for the event which gave trainers the opportunity to give their dogs both a chance to run the track and hopefully do a time that would gain entry into the heats this weekend.

The racing manager will be looking to field the strongest 36 greyhounds available, so here is my review of the performances from the weekend.

I did a check during the week on the winner’s times in Jacket finals over the last 21 years.

The fastest win-time was recorded by Blues Best Taylor in 2001 when the dog recorded 45.19 seconds for the 714 metres, so that is the benchmark.

I have to start therefore with the outstanding time of 45.31 registered by Farley Zach in his trial stakes win on Saturday. Trained by Kim Billingham, at our sister track Monmore, the dog would have been a leading fancy for this year’s race and this performance has endorsed his credentials.

He has the experience needed having had 48 career races around no fewer than 11 different tracks.

Such knowledge will hold him in good stead and if the trap draws are favourable to him throughout it is difficult to see him not reaching the final. He has a great chance.

The only other winner’s time under 46 seconds from the remaining four trials races was set by Creamery Quest who managed 45.79.

This is the fastest time the dog has recorded at Crayford to date and would indicate that he will have to find further improvement to reach the last six.

As at the time of writing, the trap draw had not yet been made for this weekend’s six heats, so it is difficult to try and work out which dogs will go through to the semi-final stage.

However, having looked at the potential starters I would like to give an early vote of confidence to Express Trend, Blue Bee, Bush Whitney and Farley Zach.

Trend is trained by Liz McNair and comes into the event having won her last three Open races.

She has that bit of class and I expect her to figure prominently.

I would give Blue Bee an outside chance too and trainer Matt Dartnell will be looking for her to improve round to round.

She could be a decent price and would be a good value bet.

Bush Whitney has connections to last year’s winner Bush Paddy in the shape of part-owner Wally Downes, who is the first-team coach at West Ham United. Don’t discount the dog as back-to-back wins for Wally are a distinct possibility.