Yesterday evening came the announcement that GENCO, a company owned by leading owner Jack Russell, had stepped in to sponsor the highly anticipated Juvenile at Towcester in July, with 3 rounds and a winners prize of £5000. This comes shortly after Russell, who owns a number of dogs with Maxine Locke including English Derby semi finalists Coss Tokyo and Droopys Pivotel, also sponsored the Puppy Trophy on finals night, where Wicky Ned will line up a red hot favourite after winning his heat on Saturday in 28.85.
Towcester spokesman Billy Brennan was quick to show his appreciation. He had this to say, “Jack stepped in and sponsored the Juvenile this year after also sponsoring our puppy trophy competition on Derby final night. I was speaking to him and he’s keen to sponsor more in the future which is great news. For now we thank him sincerely for everything he’s done already and look forward to both competitions!”
The dates for the Juvenile are:
1st Round – Sunday 14th July
Semi Final – Sunday 21st July
Final – Sunday 28th July
With the Pall Mall also scheduled to start in July, the next task is to find a sponsor for that. Billy is keen to keep it as a category 1 competition with a winners prize of £15,000. He said “I’m in conversation with 2 potential sponsors at the moment, but nothing is concreted in yet. It has to ideally stay as a category one and anybody that may be interested in sponsoring can put their name forward by contacting me. Although we’re in talks with 2 companies, you can never have enough interest and hopefully it’ll be sorted in the near future.”
The hot topic of conversation in recent days was the decision to re-run the second heat of the Townview Kennels Derby Plate. Jamie Norris was vocally disappointed on ‘X’ that his runner, Kilara Roberto, was having to go back for the scheduled re-run this evening, and that the Graham Holland trained runner, Faypoint Harvey, wasn’t voluntarily or compulsorily withdrawn having never been in a position to qualify after first bend trouble. He also highlighted the lack of consistency within the GBGB, as to how they’ve allowed dispensation for a re-run, when similar circumstances occurred at Monmore last year and permission wasn’t granted. He urged the GBGB to look and rethink their ruling.
As it’s turned out, there’s no longer a requirement for a re-run, after the announcement came this morning that Faypoint Harvey would be a non-runner. On his withdrawal Billy had this to say, “Graham called me this morning and the dog went back home on Sunday evening. Although Nicky (Graham’s wife) originally requested a re-run after the race Saturday evening, Graham decided that he and the dog would be staying at home, and therefore would be a non-runner tonight. The remaining 3 have automatically been entered into the final for Saturday.”
