Inside Track: Jones kennel aiming to make it third time lucky
Inside Track with Joe Carroll
The Jones greyhound kennel in Corduff, outside Carrickmacross, has been sending out runners over a long number of years.
An older generation of followers will remember Jemmy John, a prolific winner who at one stage held the national record for the 525 distance.
Others, many of them carrying the Farney prefix, were also big-race winners for the north-east’s best-known establishment.
Laurence Jones is the current guv’nor, and is maintaining a strong tradition. He has sent out two Irish Derby finalists, and on next Saturday night will send out another. Can Sleight Of Hand make it third time lucky?
Our Surprise looked to be in with a big chance when dead-heating in the semi-final of the 2019 renewal, but was unable to take his place in the decider.
Four years later, Well Met was the Jones qualifier, but while this lad got a run, he had to be satisfied with 5th behind the winner, The Other Kobe.
Now comes Sleight Of Hand. The 2-year-old has a deficit to make up on his semi-final conqueror, Bouncing Monarch, but having drawn trap 1 in a field that has five seeded inside runners, is not without a major chance.
Sleight Of Hand goes into the decider – which carries a €125,000 winner’s prize and is sponsored by the Dundalk-headquartered BOYLE Sports – with three wins in the competition to his credit. In two of them, he relegated a couple of Saturday night’s opponents to second place.
The one they all have to beat is Bouncing Monarch. The Tipperary-trained runner has an unbeaten competition record, and in a career of 27 runs, has finished first on 20 occasions. He’s quoted at odds-on, while Sleight Of Hand is on 8/1.