The last series of Trial Stakes races for the Golden Jacket were run on last Saturday evening’s card with six such races and 48 dogs all hoping to impress the Racing Manager with a view to being selected for the event proper.

At this last trial stakes stages, we usually see the bigger trainers sending out their potential entrants and this was again the case with champion trainer for 2013, Mark Wallis, sending both Hometown Honey and Sidaz Dippy.

Such is the prestige of the race, that dogs trained at venues far and wide turn up at Crayford and on Saturday night we had runners from Henlow, Swindon, Romford, Hall Green Birmingham, Coventry, Hove Brighton, Yarmouth, Wimbledon and Monmore Wolverhampton, such is the competition to land the £17,500 winner’s prize.

The 36 greyhounds selected to start in the heats stages will be entered into the trap draw at the track on Wednesday and the six heats will be run here on Saturday. I have selected Hometown Honey as my idea of the winner and a weekly update of how the Golden Jacket is progressing will be given here as the event reaches the semi-final and final stages.

Ante-post favourite for this year, Fear Emoski trained by Charlie Lister OBE, came to Crayford last week for a solo trial in preparation for the big event.

Her expected participation has added extra spice to the event as she is probably one of the best greyhounds in training over long distances.

Trainer Lister has been quoted in the press that he feels that the dog is an ideal type for Crayford and for me, she is on paper a worthy ante-post favourite.

The final will be run on Saturday morning, February 22 when in addition to the Golden Jacket, there will be two other finals for the Peter Bussey Memorial Trophy and The Chief Ramsbottom Hurdle worth £2,000 and £500 respectively to the winners.

A nice extra touch will be a presentation to Crayford Stadium’s all-time race record holder Newlawn Sweep who recently retired at the age of eight, having had 267 competitive races at the track.

This will be your last chance to see a dog that is simply a living legend. Sweep will be accompanied by his trainer Patsy Cusack.