More on KentOnline
Essie Tara won in her debut race at the weekend and the ex-Brighton racer seems to have taken an instant liking to her new surroundings here.
Her formbook shows she had 62 competitive races before joining Crayford trainer Steve Gammon’s kennels. All of those were at Brighton but you have to go back to early December to find her last win.
What her formbook clearly shows is she has early pace and over just the 380m here, she should find things a lot easier than at her previous venue at which she ran over 515m.
She was paw perfect at the weekend when flying out of the boxes to lead all the way to score at odds of 6-1. We have a similar case in Kiltomey Simba trained by Barry O’Sullivan who failed by just a short head to win the Metro Cup on Saturday night worth £500.
The dog came into this event having had several open class races and was expected to do well. On this occasion, he found one just to good in Mountcashel Gift.
Her sectional time of 12.77, trap to line, gave her a four- length lead over Simba at that point so he did well to reduce that lead down to the smallest of margins across the winning line. I think that we will see him racing here in either top grade S1 races over 540m or in opens over the coming months.
Performance of the weekend for me was the runaway win of youngster Kilmead Charm, who has been performing well lately having finished in the first three in no fewer than nine of her last 10 starts. Her weekend win made it two on the bounce having previously won an A6 race last week, so her victory here in an A5 by five and a quarter lengths was impressive. She will now be further upgraded to A4 level and although she ran in that grade back in June, without managing to win, this time around she will be a different proposition. Expect a decent performance and accompanying starting price, she could be a good thing on this evidence.
The next major event at the stadium is the John Smiths’ Kent St Leger, the final of which will be on Saturday, October 13 worth £2,500 to the winner.
This event is for 36 greyhounds and the six heats will be run this Saturday night followed by the semi-finals on October 6.