Featured dog Aero Vegas won the big race here last Saturday, the £500 John Smith’s National Hurdle final, so hopefully you will have had the 5-1 starting price.

The Julie Luckhurst-trained greyhound was always likely to do well against the opposition, as did Bringinhersunny, tipped a fortnight ago and who made it two winners for column readers when winning a top grade A1 race on the same card at 7-2. The dog has a tendency to win a couple of consecutive races when in form, so give him further consideration.

A sell-out crowd is expected for the Boxing Day meeting, so early arrival is advised. The highlight on the 14-race card is the JB Riney Boxing Day Marathon worth £2,500 to the winner. On paper the winner will be either Powerfast Pigeon or Ministry Magpie, who won their respective semi-finals last week. The pair look, on the clock, to be streets ahead of the rest over the 874m of the race. The question is, which one wins?

Pigeon is trained by Barry O’Sullivan at Crayford so a home winner would certainly go down well with the crowd. The April 2009 daughter of the dual Derby winner Westmead Hawk has only had five career races to date. Having said that, she stays this distance well and ran 894m at Wimbledon on December 8 to finish third.

Her semi-final win time here last week of 57.36sec shows just how closely matched she is with Ministry Magpie, who won her semi in 57.41.

Pigeon was given starting odds at Wimbledon of 66-1, which would indicate little chance but the relevant fact about that race was she had Magpie behind her in fourth, just over five lengths adrift.

To my mind, that price reflects only that the layers had no idea of whether the dog would stay against class opposition over a marathon distance. Now they and we know she does and I would suggest that price should be ignored.

I have always had a great deal of admiration for the dogs that carry the ‘Ministry’ prefix and which are owned by the Ministry of Hounds syndicate. Their dogs have figured prominently in our big races with success in the past. Magpie has represented them well and has had wins at Romford, Wimbledon and Sittingbourne, as well as here at Crayford. It is the case of the experienced open racer in Magpie against a new star we may not have seen the best of.

It is a hard call to make but I am leaning toward Pigeon because the race has come at the right time.

If she wins, there will be many on the open race circuit that will be of the opinion that we have a new kid on the block.