Santas trial stakes injury leaves sour taste for Mullins

TRAINER David Mullins has called for tracks to end the practice of grading trial stakes for major competitions following a career-ending injury suffered by his kennel star Santas Amigo at Towcester on Sunday.

The brilliant dual Category One winner, who was as short as 25-1 for the upcoming Star Sports & Orchestrate Derby at the Northamptonshire circuit, was caught up in serious first-bend trouble in a top-class warm-up contest on Sunday as Graham Holland’s Faypoint Harvey took a crashing fall at the turn, cannoning into Santas Amigo who then hampered Richard Rees’s Texas Jack before coming to a standstill at the second turn.

The quality of the contest was underlined by the winning time of Paul Hennessy’s Lennies Eddie, whose 28.82sec (-20) effort was quickest of all nine trial stakes on the card, while the times of second- and third-placed Ballymac Kobe and Grouchos Jack were faster than five of the other winners on the card.

Speaking from the surgery of specialist vet Gabriel Freiria yesterday, Mullins said: “The most important thing is he will be okay in himself – at one point I thought it might have been even worse. But he will never race again.

“We stopped at Stefano’s [Malegori, vet] surgery on the way home on Sunday and initial x-rays did not look good, but as he was unable to treat him at the time, we booked him in at Gabriel’s today.

“Things became clearer with a second x-ray and examination and it appears to be severe ligament damage rather than a fracture. He’s being operated on as I speak.

“I’ve had this argument with more than one racing office in the past and it still infuriates me that many of them insist on grading trial stakes to make them competitive. 

“Surely they are about giving all dogs a look round in preparation for a competition rather than pitching the quickest ones all in together? You want dogs like Santas Amigo in your competition and we felt he needed one race before the Derby; it now turns out to have been his last.”

Runner-up to Holland’s Swords Style in the recent Time Greyhound Nutritional Juvenile at Towcester, Santas Amigo made history last year as the first greyhound to complete the big north-east double when winning Sunderland’s 450m PGR Classic and Newcastle’s 480m PGR All England Cup.

“He’s one of the fastest dogs I’ve ever trained and I felt he was getting better and stronger this year,” Mullins added. “His recent trial work has been exceptional and I felt he was the best chance I’d had in the Derby for many years.

“I just hope tracks learn from this. When you enter a competition then the trap draw is what it is, but these trial stakes shouldn’t be weighted the way they are as you just stop the faster dogs getting clear runs.”

Mullins did get on the scoresheet on Sunday in the very next race with Zenith Jimbombom (28.95sec, second best on the card), but said: “I was in the vet’s room at Towcester and just glanced up at the screen as he turned the last bend in front.

“He’s run really well, but to be honest my head was elsewhere at that point.”

Towcester racing manager Danny Rayment was on duty on Sunday and said: “Like everybody I was gutted to see what happened and express my sympathies to David and all concerned.

“Faypoint Harvey got up and completed after his fall, but you could see straight away that Santas Amigo was worse off.

“With regards to the splitting up of the trial stakes, I do understand the points he makes and we did have a conversation about it beforehand.

“When you have that many dogs to accommodate, my starting point is always to look at seeding and try and spread the middles and wides out, while when trainers have multiple runners you look to keep them apart.

“If there was some sort of automated system available that would take in those two factors and generate divisions then I’d be all for it. 

“It’s never easy to split them up yourself and nobody wants to see any greyhound suffer on the track.”

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