Spiridon Came and Conquered for the TV

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Spiridon Louis put the finishing touches to his William Hill TV Trophy campaign Live on Sky Sports at Yarmouth Stadium last night, having obliterated the track record for C&D in the trial stakes for this event, Lorraine Sams powerhouse was not surprisingly sent off red hot favourite just before the lids opened. Strongly supported in the Stadium Bookmaker Betting Market, Spiridon Louis entered the traps at 4/7 favourite, odds on to win the Silver Trophy and the £6000 first prize. Wise Susie a 28/1 outsider, drawn in box one, trapped best but ominously Spiridon Louis soon glued to the rails and dropped in behind `Susie` and after the first circuit `Louis` took up the lead. Wise Susie came back to the seventh bend but Spiridon Louis just kept on as if it was a walk in the park, and held on well to win the £6000 purse by just one length. Mitzie, trap six took the third place prize of £500, but was six lengths behind the leading pair. Spiridon Louis clocked 53.47 this time round in the final, his track record here two weeks ago of 52.98 broke a 21 year old standing record, held by Change Guard who clocked 53.62 in 1986. Although a lot of supporters doubted Spiridon Louis's marathon performance, when he came to Yarmouth, jibes of "will he stay the trip" were circulating fast throughout the greyhound world, but he showed his doubters he can with a shocking run in the trial stakes. 

Trainer Lorraine Sams said: "That’s a fantastic show here tonight, taking nothing away from Wise Susie who run absolutely brilliantly, but what more can you say, it's just fantastic, he's now gone through the Regency unbeaten and the TV Trophy unbeaten, words just can't express his performance. A lot of hard work, care and attention goes into bringing a dog to this standard, and it's good to see it pay off. Not thinking ahead too far, but I will probably have him lined up for one or two one off races just bringing him back slowly, we will see how he goes, he will have a bit of a break and we will go from there. To be honest Marathon races are fairly sparse, although he doesn’t run Wimbledon well, we may head for the marathon on Derby final night, so will give him a trial there, maybe an outing at Brighton he runs that track well, just play it by ear really".

Owner Gail May said: " Well the TV Trophy has gone completely as we hoped it would, because there was every possibility that there would be trouble early, that was the main danger to us, but I think to be honest he really had to dig deep towards the end, because Wise Susie ran so well, but he just seemed to touch that off. I bought him as a five month old puppy, and I didn't pay silly money for him obviously at five months old, and I didn’t know what he was going to be or expected, but I bought him off Nick Savva who is ' the best in the business ', and just really hoped he would be a good grader, and that was the height of my expectations, but now to win the Regency and now this it's just absolutely crazy, I feel the luckiest person living".

Summing up the overall competition was Yarmouth Stadium's managing Director Stephen Franklin saying: " My main memory from the whole TV Trophy competition is still when Spiridon Louis broke the track record here over the 843m trip, leading Blonde Pearl round on that occasion, that was an absolute breathtaking pace and run so perfect. The whole television trophy process and Sky's involvement with William Hill and the whole organisation, it's quite breathtaking watching the amount of work that goes into this, with production teams and so on, it seems a lot for us, but until you see it first hand, you don't realise how complicated it all is. I have been very pleased with the overall outcome of the competition being staged at Yarmouth over the past weeks, it's been a delight having it here and Sky featuring nine of the nights races live on Sky channel".   

Write up and photographs by ROB COLEMAN.