Coventry Re-Opening, Swindon's Derby Dogs, Produce Stakes, Puppy Graded

I thought I'd go back to the old format of blogging for this one, as its a rather mixed bag of different things.


Coventry Reopening:


Some great news this week with the announced reopening of Coventry Greyhounds. Many congratulations to Harry Findley and everyone involved in getting the track back up  to scratch. From what I've heard, alot of work has gone into ensuring the the racing surface is top notch (as it always was), and new equipment has been installed throughout the place. I just hope that this time they don't go OTT like what happened last time, and we all remember what happened there.


Coventry reopening can do wonders for Swindon in my opinion. We have a very strong graded strength here and Coventry is ideally situated for open racing. Coventry will be open racing on Sunday's, with half decent money being paid, so there isn't an excuse now for not picking up a minor open or two. Coventry's a very strong gallop like Swindon, and always suits our runners whenever I saw them up there. Fingers crossed our trainers can take advantage and pick up some OR wins.


Swindon's Derby Dogs:


I must admit I'm getting rather excited now about the Derby. Entries closed on Wednesday, and its good to see a couple of Swindon faces in there. Chris Stringer has Hernandez entered who, on paper, is a class act and could go with the best of them. He just needs to get his racing cap, then he can do wonders for the Stringer camp.

Sir Dartnall is also quite well supported in the derby, with Farloe Iceman, Ironman and Ballymac Cryan spearheading his team. I will say it now, I don't think Cryan is a derby dog really, alas we'll wait and see. Iceman is an absolute machine when he gets it right, and could be a very good thing going into the derby. Fingers crossed Matt can reach another derby final


Puppy Graded Racing


This is something that a few people have spoken to me about recently. Puppy graded races seem to have been cropping up at a few tracks recently (inc. Poole). My stance on them is that I think putting six pups in together, especially if theyre in-experienced, doesn't really do much good. I think that pups learn better when they're put in with experienced campaigners, who can then show them round the track a bit. If you've got six pups in a race that have no or very little track knowledge, they could all be in a pickle.


Saying that, a puppy graded race whereby the pup has had a few races and just needs an easier run, however not dropping grades, is a pretty sensible idea.