Greyhound racing returns to Dublin on Friday evening with a competitive graded card at Shelbourne Park although the clear highlight of the weekend’s action comes at the same venue some twenty four hours later.
After almost three months on the side lines, a number of Ireland’s top handlers clearly felt it was time for their big guns to get back to work with a number of classic winners on show including the reigning English Derby champion Priceless Blake, 2018 Irish Derby winner Ballyanne Sim, the Leger and Gold Cup winner Ballymac Anton and last year’s Champion Stakes heroine Ballymac Arminta.
Outside of the more established names, the likes of Ballymac Wild, Ballymac Reece and Coolavanny Kyser have a bright future and it will be interesting to see them back on the sand. While the racing will be behind closed doors, there will be plenty watching online and there will be plenty of classic clues on show.
Of course, the Irish calendar is going to be particularly hectic in the coming months following the decision from the Irish Greyhound Board to rescue the classics missed during the lockdown.
It means that the feature events and classics will come thick and fast in the next six months, starting with the National Produce Stakes at Clonmel next month. That will be quickly followed by the Corn Cuchulainn at Shelbourne and the National Sprint at Dundalk.
The Irish Derby remains in its normal slot, with the final scheduled for Saturday September 19th. An added complication with the calendar is the rescheduled English Derby at Nottingham. The event has been thrown a lifeline and will now go ahead in October, starting just two weeks after the Irish Derby decider.
Last year’s competition saw the Irish record a 1-2-3 with the aforementioned Priceless Blake coming home in front of his compatriots Ballymac Tas and Skywalker Logan. Every year a strong team travels from these shores and our record in the event is more than impressive.
Whether they will travel in the same numbers this year has yet to be seen, although the biggest name of all is due to make the journey. 2019 Irish Derby champion Lenson Bocko hasn’t raced since emerging an impressive winner of the 2019 Michael Fortune Night of Stars late last year but his owners have made no secret of their desire to challenge for English Derby glory.
Of course, his route to Nottingham has now changed with the Graham Holland trained superstar set to mount a defence of his Irish Derby title before journeying across the water. It’s a big ask of the brilliant tracker but he has shown in his relatively short career that he’s a bit special.
For the moment though, we can just look forward to a few months of enthralling racing action. It all starts on Saturday and, have no doubt, with the Derby just over the horizon, there will be plenty of clues on offer to those paying attention.
