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Ein echter Champion

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Unglaublich, was geht wenn man sie ordentlich behandelt!

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[Oval 5]

RIP Newlawn Sweep 

Newlawn Sweep had 268 at Crayford and 3 at Romford in Open races.
Unfortunately, he passed away earlier this year of old age

Unglaublich, was geht wenn man sie ordentlich behandelt!

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IAN BLAND: OUR INSIDE MAN AT CRAYFORD

258 and counting... M y first column here in the March issue opened with a feature on track favourite Newlawn Sweep who is still racing here at the age of seven and a half. He is the all-time race record holder at Crayford with 258 races on his card and is I hope about to add yet another landmark to his career record by winning his 50th graded race for trainer Patsy Cusack and owner Peter Claxson. So the question now has to be does anyone know of any other grader that has had a half century of graded wins? It would be interesting to hear from anyone with any information. In the interim Sweep shows no sign of planning to retire and I would not put it past him to go and win at least one more time and further elevate his already considerable reputation here. Last month's tips Zenas Elena and Zenas Poppy both managed wins at odds of 2-1 and 7-2 and I have been keeping a close eye on proceedings with a view to finding you more winners in this month's issue. Like All tracks our trainers have those top grade dogs that occasionally feature in Open races here and whilst they win the odd race at that level they may to my mind be just that little bit short of open class although they do tend to make the most of home advantage in such races. What is evident however is that usually they benefit greatly from having featured in Opens and then do very well when returning to top graded races. So here are my dogs for you to back with some confidence over the next few weeks. Pony Bride is trained by Steve Gammon and is decent Open class. He has had three dozen career races to date at various venues both in this country and in Ireland as a puppy. His last four races have all been at Crayford and he clearly likes this track having won one and finishing second twice in his three Open races here since late April. During this period he also ran in an E1 graded race over the Golden Jacket distance of 714 metres and romped home three lengths in clear of the field in a decent time of 45.76 seconds. If he has a weakness it is that he is generally slow away from the

traps however he runs on extremely well and came from fifth place in his E1 race to win easily. The dog finished third in this year's Golden Jacket final just three and a half lengths behind winner White Soks Roks. In his case you would have to say that he is an open class greyhound so why hesitate if he gets another crack in an E1 race? Julie Luckhurst has recently been sending out Droopys Celeb in Opens over both 540 and 714 metres. The dog ran graded races here previously between July and September 2011 before a spending a year at Sittingbourne also at graded level prior to returning to Julie's kennels. The dog won an open race here in midMay on merit but actually finds our top grades A1 and S1 over 380 and 540 metres respectively difficult to win however put her in grade 2 over either distance and she

wins. So look out for her at that level and back her with confidence. My others for you to look out for are Springwood Ali, Fernhill Fury, Jims Journey and Burgess Lad who are all likely to land the odds in graded events. All have won Open races at Crayford and are a formidable foursome when dropping back to graded races. On the retired greyhound front we have three special occasions scheduled. There will be a parade of our ex-racers at Crayford in between the races on the evening card of Friday 28 June followed by our Annual Retired Greyhound Show here on Sunday 21 July. The Charity Race evening when races and individual greyhounds will be sponsored in aid of our home finding scheme will take place on Saturday 5 October 2013.