SWIFT DAISY bloomed at the right time to seal Jean Liles’s recent dual attachment to the venue when grabbing gold in the Ladbrokes Guys & Dolls Final at Crayford on Saturday.

The unique Category Two competition, which sees the bitches and dogs kept apart until the £5,000 final, was chief support to the Ladbrokes Grand National Final and saw a local triumph courtesy of the July 2021 daughter of Broadstrand Bono and Swift Cigarette, who produced a strong-running performance to land the spoils.

Pacing up but bumped at the turn, the former Romford-trained tracker, who started her career by winning an A7 at the Essex venue, rallied well to catch littermate Swift Delilah (Jim Reynolds) approaching the penultimate turn before going on for a two-and-a-quarter length success from that rival in 23.18sec (+20).

Twoathem finished third to make it a 1-2-3 for the bitches in the Ladbrokes Guys & Dolls Final – a real victory for the ladies, not lost on Crayford racing manager Danny Rayment.

“There was so many angles to this year’s Guys & Dolls, not least that the bitches dominated by filling the first three places and by also having a littermate 1-2 with Swift Daisy leading home her sister Swift Delilah. That’s something really special for the litter and great for Jean Liles, in particular, who trained the winner.

“Jean has made a welcome return to Crayford and now holds a dual attachment, here and at Romford. Daisy started her career at Romford by winning her first two races in A7 and A5. She reached A4 there before joining Jean here after a series of inter-tracks in May – and, actually, her record at Crayford has been pretty impressive.

“The Guys & Dolls was a step in class. That said, it was clear after early defeats that she was a real improver. Daisy went from winning A4 to winning A1 here – and then opens, of course! She starts and stays well and repeated her semi-final success over her sister in a bitches-only semi-final in the final.

“Well done to Swift Daisy’s owners Ruth Resnick and Andy Shaves, who are great supporters of the game, and well done to connections of all our winners on the day. It was a gala card with not just the Ladbrokes Grand National Final and the Ladbrokes Guys & Dolls but also the Ladbrokes.com Summer Cup over 540m.

“It meant we had Category One, Two and Category Three competitions here, plus a £1,000 one-off marathon – the Ladbrokes Grand National Marathon Invitational, won by Paul Young’s Bubbly Scorcher. It was a fantastic meeting all-round and drew a very good Saturday morning card.”

For the record, Coppice Fox (Ricky Holloway) won the Ladbrokes Grand National Final (see separate story), with the in-form Laughil Jess (Dave Lee) making it nine wins in a row in the Ladbrokes.com Summer Cup Final.