Monmore to host strongest greyhounds card in several months

The Winter Derby is Monmore’s first major competition of 2025 and sees 36 of Britain’s very best dogs vying for the £10,000 prize, with this evening’s card the strongest the Wolverhampton track has had for several months at least.

Hunt – now solely training at Monmore having had his last runners at sister track Romford earlier this week – takes both Scooby The Boss and Clona Stand into the Category One event.

Scooby The Boss runs in the second of the night’s six heats and needs a top three finish to get through to next week’s semi-finals. Clona Stand goes from trap five in the fifth heat.

“Clona Stand has done well for us so far, winning three of four races, and even managed to win Category Three competitions at both Hove and Monmore already,” said Hunt. “He’s got good Irish form as well, but this will be a step up in class for him.

“We’ve seeded him as a middle runner and there’s a lot of railers in the competition, so if he can get through the first round, he should be able to get a decent trap draw for the semi-finals.

“If he can get away nice and early, he’s got a good chance.

“Scooby The Boss has only had one race with us but managed to win that and has run superbly in trials. He also did well back in Ireland.

“He’s probably our best chance of success and trap two suits him for this race, although Millbank Boiler inside of him has lots of early pace too.

“We’re solely at Monmore now and it would be nice to do well in the Winter Derby on the back of that.

“It’s a seriously hot competition and we’re excited to see how our boys do.”

Heat one gets the event started with a bang as Gary The Arb (Belinda Green, Hove) takes on Links Maverick (Tom Heilbron, Newcastle) in what will be a thrilling battle to the first bend.

Gary The Arb ran a flying time of 27.71secs at Monmore a few weeks ago – the quickest achieved since Links Maverick’s 27.70 in the summer of 2023.

Another Monmore hope involved in heat one is Kim Billingham-Hine’s Toolmaker Note who won in fine fashion last weekend.

Billingham-Hine also has Phoenix Posh, with three wins from her last four outings, taking part in heat two alongside Hunt’s Scooby The Boss.

A tough-to-call heat three is followed by a tasty fourth heat containing last year’s Ladbrokes Gold Cup champion Churchfield Syd (Richard Rees, Hove) and another super-consistent performer in El Tornillo (David Lee, Crayford). Proper Heiress (Mark Wallis) is also well-fancied by bookmakers.

Two Monmore trainers in Brian Thompson and Pat Doocey have one representative each as Vixons Filofax and Longacres Magic go out in heat five and six respectively.

Filofax has arguably been Monmore’s standout Open-class dog over the last 12 months but has been limited to trials as of late while Magic has been in fine fettle with two firsts and a second over the past few weeks.

Magic, however, does go up against some elite operators including last year’s Summer Stayers Classic runner-up Queen Georgia (Elizabeth McNair, Central Park) and Coolavanny Mercy (Angela Harrison, Newcastle).