Airforce and Joker set up a Romford final to savour

Mark Wallis: Trained a 1-2-3 in Romford heat won by AeroJoker

  PICTURE: STEVE NASH  

THE highlights of Romford's Monday night Bags card were a brace of heats (575m) for the Tony Byerley Quicksilver Trophy - thefinal of which can be seen live on RPGTV this Friday.

The opening eliminator was quite an achievement for trainer Mark Wallis who sent out the first three home for a near 13-1 tricast.
Aero Joker (4-6F) just managed to clear kennelmate Mountjoy Orion at the first bend and from thereafter it was pretty much plain sailing for the course and distance specialist.
Ballintine Molly rode a third bend bump and battled on well to snatch silver albeit some 3 1/2L behind the winner who clocked 35.54sec.
Ricky Holloway's Airforce Newyork, an uneasy even-money favourite, produced an exciting performance in taking heat two.
The October 09 son of Westmeasd Hawk had plenty to do with a circuit to go but found an impressive turn of foot to run down early leaders Soviet Josie (faded) and Coolavanny Fairy (battled on).
Leading rounding the final two bends, he quickened away for a stylish 2 3/4L success in 35.28sec to set up a thrilling not-to-be-missed showdown with Aero Joker this coming Friday.
Draw: 1 Mountjoy Orion, 2 Airforce Newyork, 3 Aero Joker, 4 Coolavanny Fairy, 5 Ballintine Molly (m), 6 Hugo You Go (m).

Nottingham's Bags programme included three heats of The Corona Dual Distance competition. These were run over the 305m trip while next Monday's decider will be staged over the 480-metre course.

Heat one saw George Oswald's Playfield Nikita (5-2F) crack out and make all in a useful 18.01sec. That was followed by an impressive win for Bob Hall's Caribbean Rich (3-1) who stormed to a 17.97sec success in the second.

Caribbean Rich's only otherUK start had been in the Derby where he was one of the few first round casualties.

Heat three, where Slick Scenario T2 - the anticapated favourite was a non-runner, saw George Oswald on the mark again with his Foxy Red (3-1) who showed good all-round speed to outpoint Frankbrunosbro by 3/4L in 18.11sec.