KAREN MCMILLAN, Romford’s stadium manager, is looking forward to another major final night at the Essex venue after Friday’s semi-finals of the Coral Golden Sprint set up a high-class final for the £10,000 prize.

Following on from January’s Coral Essex Vase gala, McMillan is now preparing her team for the 400m showpiece event at the track – albeit big-race competitions are always supported throughout the year by various themed nights, not least for last week’s Mother’s Day and other recent celebrations, such as those for Chinese New Year.

“You know us, we like to be involved, but above all to ensure our customers have a great time, so we spoiled the mums here last week with bunches of flowers and rosettes. That’s what most people were doing that weekend anyway so, if greyhound racing can be a part of family celebrations or anything else, then that’s good for us – and our crowds continue to be very good.

“This year the Coral Golden Sprint is a standalone Category One. We ran it along with the Coronation Cup as a big-race double header last year, but wanted to give the Coral Coronation Cup its own space with 575m heats on May 31, the semis on June 7 and the final on Friday, June 14. It will also be worth £10,000 to the winner – and will be another great night here.”

Looking forward to Friday’s Coral Golden Sprint final, McMillan added: “Patrick (Janssens) has a worthy favourite clearly in Druids Say Go and his team have a good record in the race in recent years. I’m just delighted we’ve plenty of our trainers involved and, remember, Paul (Burr) won our first major comp this year when Roxys Bullet won the Essex Vase.

“Paul’s back with Supa Nova, who has a such a great fan club here at Romford, Paul Young has Aero Convey and I’m delighted for Katie (O’Flaherty) getting Seomra Paws through. Best wishes to them all and to our visitors supporting the kennels of Richard Rees (Kila Detail) and Kevin Proctor (Front Alice). It should be a brilliant final.

“My thanks go to our staff ahead of another busy night – they do a fantastic job – and to one of our bookmakers Steve Simmons who’s backing the sprint final on the card. It’s another really good Friday night card and we’re looking forward to it.”

Heading into the decider, Druids Say Go will start favourite after another fastest-of-the-night victory in last week’s second semi-final.

The Patrick Janssens-trained September 2021 daughter of Droopys Sydney and Druids Diana was quickly away and made all to score by three lengths from Supa Nova (Paul Burr), clocking 23.90sec (-20) for the 400m trip.

The first semi-final saw the Richard Rees-trained Kila Detail (Laughil Blake-Kilara Lizzie, Sept 2021) finish best to catch longtime leader Bombout Bullet (Belinda Green) before crossing the line a length and three-quarters from Front Alice (Kevin Proctor) posting 24.30sec (-20), the pair both qualifying for the final.

The third semi-final saw a home-trained winner as Aero Convey produced a solid all-round pace performance to grab gold in a driving finish, the October 2021 son of Droopys Sydney and Allowdale Coco winning by half a length from trackmate Seomra Paws (Katie O’Flaherty) in 24.12sec (-20).

Form and trap draw for Friday’s final: https://assets.cj1.in/imminent-otter/production/assets/results/Romford/form-guides/Friday-15th-March-2024-Proof.pdf