More on KentOnline
Ryves Rock, Wet Trade and Islay Son will represent Crayford when they compete at Swindon on Easter Friday in the finals of the BAGS SIS Easter Bunny event.
Trainer Barry O’Sullivan will be delighted that Ryves and Islay will be making the trip having won their respective local finals here at Crayford a week ago. Performance of the event here was registered by youngster Ryves Rock who flew around the 380m in a fast time of 23.19 seconds.
The dog has only just turned two and his race record here now reads seven starts, four wins, two seconds and a third-place finish. What he has is early pace in abundance and he certainly knows how to run this track well.
The 380m final here was all over within a few metres as the dog showed the opposition a clean pair of pads going on to win by over seven lengths. I suspect that we are looking at a dog here who will become Open class in the near future but in the meantime we can rest assured that he will represent Crayford well at Swindon.
In contrast, Wet Trade is now nearing the end of his racing career and will be five years of age in July. Trained by Steve Gammon, the dog has always given a good account of himself here during his 84 races at Crayford and his win in the 540m final last week will be seen as a just reward for a dog that is well thought of and entirely deserving of an important away day trip.
His qualification was earned the hard way as he had to overcome a missed break away from the traps followed by crowding on the first bend. But he powered his way home recording a decent time of 34.23, given the traffic problems and while he may not win the Easter Bunny grand final, he deserves his place in the last six.
From the three final races here, Islay Son was the shock victor in the 714m race as his starting price of 12-1 reflected.
He enjoyed some good fortune during the race over two circuits of the track having established an early lead.
Hot favourite Zenas Peggy was blocked on no less than four occasions by Islay Son’s kennel-mate Fawkham Zeus and Peggy, who went off at 4-9 odds-on favourite, never looked like rewarding her supporters. It was almost as if the O’Sullivan pair ran to team orders! Islay Son will now go to Swindon and may well start at an even bigger price but he won this against the odds and in greyhound racing you just never know what might transpire.