EMMYBELL BOY landed hugely successful owner Shaun Gresham a notable success as a trainer when taking down the BetGoodwin Series Maiden Stayers Final at Oxford.

Involved with great friend Alf Ashe in the likes of He Went Whoosh, Cracking Man, Loughteen Blanco and Maree Champion, former Poole trainer Gresham has long held a licence himself and travelled up from his Exeter base with Emmybell Boy to strike at Oxford.

The £3,000 BetGoodwin Series Maiden Stayers Final over 650m was the final Category Two competition of 2024, coming just 24 hours after Newcastle had wrapped up the final Category One event of the year with the Premier Greyhound Racing All England Cup, and continued a busy time for open races at the Cowley venue.

Narrowly beaten in the heats by Southfield Petal, Emmybell Boy impressed in the semi-finals with a runaway victory but still went off a 3-1 chance behind 11-8 favourite Fabulous Maisie (Laurence Tuffin). However, a good start and show of pace into the turn secured a race-winning first-bend lead in the six-bend feature.

Keeping up the gallop, the February 2022 son of Grangeview Ten and Jaytee Osprey never looked in danger thereafter, racing away for a two and a quarter length success over Head Count (Barry O’Sullivan) and Fabulous Maisie in a slick 39.54sec (-15).

A two-time winner at Shelbourne Park for Paul Hennessy, Emmybell Boy had joined Tom Levers for a crack at the Star Sports/TRC English Derby at Towcester, exiting the Classic behind Gaytime Nemo before winning a heat of the Greyhoundtrader.com Stakes. Later joining Gresham, he has notched up wins since at Swindon and Oxford.

Paul Johnson, joint racing manager at Oxford, congratulated owner-trainer Gresham for the victory and said: “Well done to Shaun and Emmybell Boy – it was a deserved win given he had to clear Fabulous Maisie to get the win and did so well in the end.

“It rounded off our big-race year really well – and it’s generally been a top year in that respect. Oxford is definitely back on the map for some of the big races in the game and, right from the start when David Mullins’ Romeo Cypher won the BGBF Puppy Cup, it’s been a year-full of classy winners and top-drawer performances.

“I don’t think we’ll forget (Stadium Bookmakers) TV Trophy night in a hurry after Bubbly Inferno got the run on Ballymac Taylor and came home clear for Paul Young and the Champagne Club – it was the last outside broadcast of the RPGTV era and was a special and emotional night all-round I’d say.

“And I’m not sure we could have asked for any more better winners than Aero Sacundai in the BetGoodwin Pall Mall and New Destiny just a few weeks back for the Bet365 Challenge Cup – it just shows us that trainers are more than happy to run their best dogs here and we’ll be looking for more of the same in 2025.”