HAVANA CLASS and Knocknaseed Gem shared the spoils in a magnificent race for the RPGTV Notebook Watling Street Sprint Trophy Final at Towcester on Saturday.

A two-bend competition supporting the Star Sports & TRC English Greyhound Derby Final, it featured last year’s winner Havana Class, who set a new track record in the event 12 months ago for Liz McNair and the KSS Syndicate and went off a warm order to take the £3,000 prize in this year’s Category Two feature over 270m.

However, it was the John Mullins-trained Knocknaseed Gem, a August 2018 son of Paddys Magic and Ballydoyle Gem owned by James O’Connell and Tom Purcell, who came away best and put the pace to the sprint contest, with Havana Class missing the start inside.

However, the reigning champion, a July 2019 son of World Class and Havana Lottie, produced a strong-running effort to cut the deficit, joining issue with the Mullins runner on the line – the pair dead-heating in 15.99sec.

Rab McNair, representing wife and trainer Liz, joked: “We’ll certainly take that – John’s (Mullins) a true friend and I love him to bits – even if he is English!”, while Mullins himself added: “You could not write this. Both dogs have run great races and we’ve ended up sharing the trophy – unless they’re going to order another one!”

Another heart-warming story was provided by Ivy Hill Skyhigh, a popular winner of the opening Star Sports Betting Shop Champions Seniors over 500m.

Trained by Mark Wallis, who would go on to complete a hat-trick of winners on the night with Bombardier in the supporting 712m contest and Antigua Sugar in the greyhoundrader.com Stakes Final, the June 2018 son of Taylors Sky and Yahoo Perlena, a five-time Category One finalist, made all in the 500m contest.

Winner of the Premarket Pets Blue Riband over C&D in January, the Alan Curtis, Eammon Johnston and Stephen Oliver-owned four-year-old was soon dominating after a fast start and was never headed as he crossed the line two and three-quarter lengths of the staying-on Faughan Rebel (Richard Yeates) in 29.52sec.

Emily Wallis, kennelhand for her dad Mark, said: “Boris has just been a great dog for the kennel and this was always going to be his final race. He’s been amazing for us on the track and definitely one of my favourites in the kennel. Tonight is a great way to go out and he’ll have a lovely retirement at home with Eammon (Johnston, part-owner).

“Dad always had this race in mind for Boris. He had a break and then came back at Monmore, running a good race behind Antigua Woofwoof, so we knew he was in good enough form.”

Results: https://www.gbgb.org.uk/meeting/?meetingId=386449&raceId=851878