This weekend we have scheduled the first set of trial stakes for our big race – the Ladbrokes Golden Jacket worth £17,500 to the winner.

At the time of writing, there are no details regards runners but we did have some interesting visitors last weekend. Some of which will be potential entries not only for the Jacket but also for some of the support races on February 24.

The Jacket final meeting will be live on Sky and we are giving free entry to everyone who wishes to come down and watch what will prove to be a top-class racing card.

We will be opening the gates at 5.30pm, so take note of the earlier start time.

As well as the big race, we will, as usual, be running some major support races including the Peter Bussey Memorial Stakes, the Tony Morris Memorial Stakes and the Chief Ramsbottom Hurdle plus our once-a-year maxi marathon over 1,048m which is three complete circuits of the track.

These four races alone carry collective winner’s prize money of more than £4,000. So, as you can imagine, the quality of greyhounds taking part will be top class.

On Saturday, Never Doubt Me won the hurdle race here over 540m for Jim Reynolds. Reynolds is attached to Romford and could it be that the trainer has his dog in mind for the Chief Ramsbottom Hurdle over the same distance?

The probable answer is yes and, if so, the dog would be a big player as would the expected entrants from Sittingbourne’s Ricky Holloway. He had Newinn Hawk and Soviet Military behind Never Doubt Me.

Expect further visits over the next couple of weekends from these dogs but if they all end up in the Chief Ramsbottom race, it will be hard to pick a winner given there is not much between them on the formbook.

Newinn Echo also won here on the weekend card over the Jacket distance of 714m and Seamus Cahill, who trains at Hove, must surely now consider entering the dog for the big race. She won in 45.34sec, beating Crayford dog Painted Craft who also looks like being one of our top hopes.

While Newinn Echo led from trap to line, she only beat Painted Craft by a length. The latter’s trainer, Gemma Davidson, will have been pleased with the way her dog stuck to her task.