YAHOO MAIZY led home a magnificent one-two for Romford trainer Maxine Locke and owners the JR Racing Syndicate in the bet365 English Puppy Oaks Final at Towcester.

On a star-studded night for the track’s Night of Stars-type Christmas Bonanza, it was the May 2023 daughter of Ballyhimikin Jet and Yahoo Diva who blasted from the boxes and made all the running to claim victory in the £10,000 feature over 500m.

Racing to a super-slick 4.03sec sectional, Yahoo Maizy soon had her rivals under pressure and it was left to kennelmate Ballymac Lucia to make a real fist of it by staying on best to get within half a length of the 29.25sec (normal) winner for a Locke one-two.

A delighted Maxine Locke, celebrating a record year for the Essex kennel, said: “This really does top a brilliant year for us. The girls have done us proud here at Towcester and I can’t thank the team who make it all possible enough – they’ve been brilliant.

“We always thought Maizy would lead and she’s done it perfectly on the night. She’ll be kept to puppy competitions moving forward, but Lucia could develop into a really lovely stayer for us which is exciting.

“First off well done to Jack Russell and Rob Howe of the JR Racing Syndicate – they are great supporters of ours and they’ve also had a great finish to the year with Droopys Display winning the (Premier Greyhound Racing) Kent Derby a few weeks back.

“I’d also like to thank Gavin O’Mahoney for all his support to the kennel to – it’s been brilliant and makes us look forward to future with excitement. There’s a good young team of greyhounds here to go to work with in 2025 and plenty to look forward it.

“Thanks also to mum and dad who make it all possible and the staff who do such great work. We’ve got a great atmosphere at the kennel and wins like this certainly help!”

On the winner and runner-up, Locke said: “Lucia ran really well for us in the (English) Puppy Derby, making the final, and both she and Maizy have flourished at Towcester.

“Maizy probably has more natural speed – her first win came in an Oxford sprint, remember – but you’ve still got to get home at Towcester and she has. Lucia just has really good all-round gears and there’s more to come from both – both are May 2023s.”

The 15-race card at Towcester was made up of four kennel sweepstakes finals, ten £3,000-to-the-winner invitations, and the Category One feature.

A power outage after the first race caused a delay of over an hour to the meeting covered by the Gone To The Dogs – Live! team but the track was able to catch up time.

The full list of invitation winners was:

Genco Construction Stakes – 500m – Droopys Plunge (Patrick Janssens)

Gone To The Dogs Sprint – 270m – Not So Slow (Patrick Janssens)

BGBF TruFrame Greyhound Stud Book British Bred Stakes – 500m – Romeo Command (Patrick Janssens)

PCS Legal Ladies – 500m – Icemans Girl (Nathan Hunt)

TruFrame Futurity Puppy Stakes – 500m – Bombay Birch (Paul Young)

KSS Syndicate Stayers Stakes – 712m – Doohoma Princess (Seamus Gaughan)

Signet Denver@Stud Seniors Stakes – 500m – Kilara Show (Richard Rees)

Barry Boothby Memorial Stakes – 500m – Table Toppers (Mark Wallis)

BetGoodwin Stakes – 500m – Kilmore Dancer (Mark Wallis)

Racingandsports.co.uk Marathon Stakes – 942m – (June Harvey)