RAIL MCCOY ended the run of red-boxed winners of the competition when landing the Coral Golden Sprint Final at Romford on Friday.

Trained by Mark Wallis for The Last Dance Syndicate, the August 2019 son of Ballymac Best and Swift Vicki was quickly away and soon in command as he took maximum advantage of a moderate exit from favourite Crossfield Dusty (Patrick Janssens).

Leading at the first bend after a slick start, Rail Mccoy secured what proved a race-winning advantage and drew clear to win by three and three-quarter lengths from Newinn Tik Tok (Patrick Browne), who repeated his second in last year’s Romford Puppy Cup.

Into The Void (Laurence Tuffin) finished third ahead of Crossfield Dusty, who was bumped at the bend when in amongst his rivals at the turn. The winning time was 24.13sec.

And winning from trap four, Rail Mccoy ended a sequence of inside runners to have won the 400m showpiece after Clondoty Alex (2017), Forest Chunk (2018), Union Jack (2019), Goldies Hoddle (2020) and Bockos Jon Jo last year – all winning from the inside slot.

Rail Mccoy had produced possibly a career-best effort when chasing home Crossfield Dusty in the semis, but now topped that performance in the £10,000 decider with a faultless show of front-running, much to the delight of the 12-time champion trainer.

Landing a third Golden Sprint title for Wallis after wins for subsequent Derby champion Blonde Snapper in 2012 and Clondoty Alex in 2017, Rail Mccoy has come a long way since starting out in A3 at Henlow as his trainer explained.

“He’s had one or two setbacks along the way but really hasn’t stopped improving when he’s been able to race,” he explained. “He’s come out well, paced up superbly and run a terrific bend – and I’m just delighted for his owners who are just a great bunch of lads.

“And the good news is this same syndicate have a lot of new dogs coming through and running for them, so there’s plenty for them to look forward to – although they enjoyed Friday I know! So thanks must go to Romford for another brilliant night and to Coral.

“A massive thanks to all the team at Imperial Kennels – Sid, Becky, Emily, Daniel, Justine and Sarah, of course, also not forgetting my mother-in-law Linda (Jones) and Ron Mills who does such great work with our dogs.”

The Romford card included two other open-race finals with both the Steve Simmons Sprint and the Stuart Roberts Quicksilver, won respectively by Nathan Hunt’s Lylas Boy (13.57sec +5) and Carol Weatherall’s Fight The Power (35.16sec +20).

Results: https://www.gbgb.org.uk/meeting/?meetingId=383241&raceId=824765