HEADFORD ASHER completed a notable family double for winning connections when racing away with the final of the Hove Puppy Cup at the Sussex track on Saturday – and now targets the £175,000 Star Sports English Greyhound Derby as one of the event’s most precocious stars.

A litter brother of Premier Greyhound Racing Puppy Derby winner Headford Dane, the Maxine Locke-trained and J R Racing Syndicate-owned youngster followed up that Monmore success for the kennel with victory at the seaside track – producing a paw-perfect and runaway performance to grab gold in the £5,000 Category Two event.

The August 2023 son of Ballymac Bolger and Headford Honey was quickly into stride and soon in command on his way to a brilliant eight and half length success over Droopys Invent (Seamus Cahill) and So Cool (Dean Childs) in a superb 28.88sec (+10) for the 500m trip, a time which compares favourably with Candolim Monsoon’s 28.69sec track record.

The victory not just sealed Category Two success and the £5,000 first prize but also decided matters for connections in terms of an English Derby bid for Romford trainer Locke and the owning J R Racing Syndicate of Jack Russell, Gavin O’Mahoney, Steve Locke and Rob Howe.

“We weren’t really considering the Derby before Saturday – but afterwards we thought why not?” said winning trainer Maxine Locke. “There’s only one Derby and it’s a long time to the 2026 running, so it seemed the right thing to do. He’s a very good dog as we saw and Saturday made it three-from-three for us heading into Towcester.

“He trials on Friday and hopefully he likes Towcester! Then it’s all systems go for our team – and we’ve got quite a few this year which is great. We got Droopys Pivotel through to the semis last year – he’s back again this year – and it’d be great to go one step further! But we known there’s a long way to go.”

The Hove Puppy Cup Final was chief support to the Coral Brighton Belle Final, the feature event of the night, won by Paul Donovan’s Runaway Dior.

Two other finals were on the card with Maxine Locke sending out Tullymurry Dylan to finish second to Liz McNair’s Queen Sinead in the Coral Sprint Trophy, while the graded Jenny Bunting Memorial Stakes went to Alfie Herbert’s Bunny Blaster.