m a n a b o u t d o g b l o g

Bantiss Bonville hits the track

It's been a long wait but at last Bantiss Bonville (Droopys Vieri x Highgate Albion Dec 07) who I own in partnership with Steve Locke, will make his debut at Romford this Saturday night.

Tipping the scales at about 80lb, he has been left to grow into his body. Now with a week left as a puppy he takes his bow at Romford.

The grader has been a tad unfair if you ask me.  He has had 5 grading on trials because of a mix up in paperwork at the GBGB and now our dog has found himself starting his race career in an A2 because he naturally progressed in his trials.

The fact he is not going to traps until race 9 (9.36pm) will not help his cause, especially as he will be kenneled up for 3 hours beforehand.  Definitely not a betting proposition, here's hoping our  'Louis'  as he was know when here, gets a fair crack of the whip and can come home safe and sound. 

Best of luck to trainer Maxine Locke.

Bantiss Annie Retired

Bantiss Annie was a cracking bitch. A winner of her first 2 races, I decided to send her up to my trainer Seamus Fahy in Galway.  Seamus got her to win in 28.90 and after her 4th win in 10 starts (an A1) she got knocked over approaching the pick up, taking a crashing fall and facing a good spell laid up.

I brought her home and while, after a long lay off,  she did some good trials (2879 Longford, 1792 Thurles and 1770,1771 Donaskeigh) she has had 5 races in the last 6 months and not won. OK she has had little niggles but if the truth be told, I haven't been giving her the attention she should be getting.  Breeding, rearing and training cannot be done by one man especially when that one man has a full time job.

But Annie was bought for breeding, being a 1/2 sister of the Irish Oaks winner Ms Firecracker, and the bitches out of Aughavas are throwing good stock.

Bantiss Annie broke down in season last week and is currently down at the Dunphys waiting to be served by College Causeway, arguably the best Irish greyhound of this decade.  I know he is unproven and so is she, but I would be confident that if she is going to throw she will throw.

For anyone interested, the breeding is 'pretty' in that it is a 3x4 Head Honcho linebreeding and has a 4x5 'Rasmussen' to Minnies Nikita - one of the best foundation broods of the last 20 years.  In fact, what we are really doing here is mating a great grand-daughter of Spiral Nikita to a grand son of Spiral's litter sister Minnies Surprise.  The Minnies Nikita line is throwing plenty of stars.

Cracker and Silver (Syndicate Pups)Update

Just a quick heads up on how the 2 pups I bought on behalf of the blog syndicate are doing.

Well the Ms Firecracker pup (by Westmead Hawk) is 8 months old now.  Out on his weekly trek across my neighbours fields today (he is in a 1 acre paddock by day and let out every evening across my own field) he is some animal for sniffing ditches.  Cracker hasn't raised any 'action' yet but he is thoroughly enjoying the experience of searching.

Ireland has been hit by the worst flooding in living memory although we have been fairly lucky really - the place is sodden after a few months of solid rain, and we are getting fed up. But my paddocks are still green and I am hopeful we can get through to January before the mud really gets bad (fingers crossed).

Silver (Shelbourne Nina by Westmead Hawk) is a few months younger and is happy with his lot - he is growing into a very lengthy type of hound - will he be a stayer?  He is 'flat sharing' with his two brothers Johnny and Elliot and they get on like a house on fire.

Fox Shit! Bewildered.

Why do greyhounds love rolling in fox shit? To this day I can't work it out no matter how many times it happens.  The smell is unreal.

It happens a few times every year, a dog will be happily running across a field and stop  suddenly, sniff the ground then grind it's neck into the ground, before rolling around in it.  If anyone knows why this happens please let me know.

Shaws Dilemma wins the Puppy Oaks at Wimbledon

The Wimbledon manaboutdogblog 'correspondent' tells me that Shaws Dilemma was ultra impressive when winning the Puppy Oaks on Saturday night.  The daughter of Droopys Vieri and Saffron Border is sure to be aimed at the William Hill Oaks next month at the same venue by her trainer Liz McNair.

Betfred Eclipse 2009

A great renewal of one of the biggest events in the UK starts tonight at Colwick Park, Nottingham.

Eye Eye Pickle, Bandicoot Tipoki, Glenard Sunrise, Eye Onthe Storm, Advantage Johnny,  Honey Trampas, Ballymac Ruso, Lenson Bolt,  Windy Millar, Farloe Lee, Wise Thought, Fear Zafonic, Ardkil Tunoco and Jordansoilutions are among a top drawer field - i think there are 5 or 6 Derby finalists in this line up and a few future ones for sure.  A great card.

Click on the tipping section for my antepost selection - actually on second thoughts don't if you want to keep your money... :)

Black Betsy wins in Nottingham

This bitch by Droopys Vieri out of Bantiss Jymmi won her debut in Longford back in the summer, but was soon amiss and was taken over to the UK for her owner Richard Coleman.  She made her debut last weekend in A4 and was a close 2nd after a good bit of trouble.  She was out again last night in the same grade and came from off the pace to pass 3 greyhounds to win, and win well.

Well done Betsy!

Live Streaming and Inter Track CUTS

The IGB have decided to cut Inter Track pictures to provincial tracks on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and have also ceased live streaming pictures to armchair punters via the internet.

To be honest I think the service has been shoddy at times, but i will miss it if it goes.

I personally think this is a public relations own goal by the IGB.  OK this may save a few thousand euro, but how many people will this further disenfranchise from the sport.

For example, Kilkenny track, based in the greyhound breeding heartland, races on Wednesday.  Joe Soap has bred a nice dog and it is running at HQ that night, so he and Mrs Soap load the kids into the car and drive into Kilkenny to watch the dog run, maybe have a few bob on the tote, buy some drinks and snacks.  Joe won't be there next week unless the card at Kilkenny is a real good one.

This scenario is not made up - this is a guarantee that this will happen. Joe Soap may give up breeding altogether if the tide continues to turn against the smaller man, down the country.

This is the latest in a series of urbancentric moves that has seen weeknight meetings at the (non Dublin) city tracks gradually disappear, and the isolation of smaller tracks gets worse, with the likes of Youghal, Enniscorthy, Kilkenny, Thurles, Clonmel and Longford all doing their best to make ends meet.

The IGB seem to be following a policy where all tracks will all race on Thursday - Sunday, and whereas the Soaps may have gone to Kilkenny on a Wednesday and Waterford on a Saturday, they will now have to choose either/or.

Maybe I am in the minority - but I think this is not dissimilar to the move that saw the IGB cancel the nightly results service on RTE Aertel fo an annual saving of about €20,000.  There was universal disapproval of that move and the service was restored.

I am not a critci of the current IGB management - I am a supporter. I am certainly not one of the gimps that continually try to see the negative in what is going on in the Irish game. But this move is a bad one in my opinion - and if we are supporters of the current management we need to tell them when they are making mistakes as well as slapping them on the back when they have successes.

What do you think about this new decision? I have set up a poll on the right of the screen - take a moment to vote.

There's a lot of it about

With the world on red alert for Swine Flu, it can be easy to forget that the lurgies that usually do the rounds this time of year are still affecting the dogs.

My dogs rarely suffer from kennel cough or sickness because, to be frank, my facilities are very basic, and they are all outside most of the day (kennel block still not built ...2010 ...i promise).  But this means that the dogs are breating fresh air all day long and not locked up which encourages bugs to take hold. 

There have been a lot of dogs withdrawn from races in the last few weeks - but that's not a new thing at this time of year.

What is a bit worrying is a couple of dogs - high profile ones - were struck down with serious illness.  It was well documented that Droopys Noel has meningitis and Scolari Me Daddy is laid up with jaundice.

Irish Open Race Sire Charts 2009

Here is the list of all sires of over 20 Open races in Ireland in 2009 (courtesy of Den Morrin).

I have added an indicator of where the sire was born - ie where it says IRE(AUS) that indicates that the sire is born here but by an import sire.  The future of the Irish sirelines looks grim.

If I had to have a a bet I would say that Brett Lee will be the top sire in Ireland next year.

1	TOP HONCHO	219	AUS
2	BRETT LEE	181	AUS
3	CRASH	143	AUS
4	HEADBOUND	124	AUS
5	DROOPYS MALDINI	117	IRE
6	PREMIER FANTASY	94	IRE(IREXUS)
7	TOP SAVINGS	91	IRE(AUS)
8	DROOPYS VIERI	88	IRE(AUS)
9	BIG DADDY COOL	80	AUS
10	DROOPYS KEWELL	77	IRE
11	DROOPYS SCHOLES	62	IRE(AUS)
12	HONDO BLACK	53	USA
13	HONCHO CLASSIC	52	AUS
14	TYRUR TED	44	IRE(AUS)
	DROOPYS SCOLARI	44	IRE
16	LARKHILL JO	43	IRE
17	RAZLDAZL BILLY	42	AUS
18	YEAH MAN	36	IRE
	DAVES MENTOR	36	AUS
20	BALLYMAC MAEVE	30	IRE(AUS)
21	WESTMEAD HAWK	29	UK(IRE/AUS)
	ACE HI RUMBLE	29	AUS
23	TUCKS MEIN	26	IRE(AUS)
24	GO WILD TEDDY	24	AUS
	ELITE STATE	24	AUS
26	HOTSHOW BEN	21	AUS
27	HALLUCINATE	20	AUS