Greyhound trainer Richie Taberner closes on 500 winners
Trainer Richie Taberner has heaped praise on his ‘exceptional’ team as Aero Greyhounds close in on an unprecedented 500 winners for the year at Monmore.
Based out of Monkspath Kennels in Wombourne, 2024 has been highly successful for Taberner & Co in both the graded ranks and on the open race scene.
After Thursday night’s race meeting, they boasted a whopping 499 winners for the year when factoring in both graded and open races – a figure never achieved before at the 96-year-old track.
The closest was also from Taberner in 2023, with 459, and he said: “It’s been a great year for us and I’m hugely proud of the team.
“It’s testament to the work they all do. I’d like to thank my partner in Aero Racing, Stuart Forsdike who heads up our exciting British-bred programme from his Essex base while also being hands on at Monkspath and parading Open race winners for the team.
“Of course, assistant trainers Arran Dunn and Jo Slater deserve a huge amount of credit for their work and there’s a lot of people to thank. Arran’s mum, Pam Burford is a former trainer and has such fantastic knowledge to call upon.
“Our physio Greg, his wife Alison and kennelhands Emily, Scarlett, Ashley, Corrin, Stacey, John, Tony, Charlie, Sasha and Andrew have done great work.
“Claire Butler and her daughter, Jess have been brilliant, too, while Claire does such important work on site with her charity Home Run Hounds, finding homes for our retired racers.
“There’s been some exceptional performances from our dogs. Crossfield Kevin, Hawk and Alien Dream have all won 11 graded races at Monmore.
“Crossfield Larry and Aero Sacundai have been among those to do very well in Opens for us. Sacundai also won the Category One Pall Mall at Oxford, a Category Two competition at Towcester and set a new track record at Towcester.
“We couldn’t do it without the support of our owners and we’re hugely grateful for all they do. We’re all excited to see what 2025 brings.”
Taberner will hope to add more winners to the giant tally tonight at Monmore as they host a full graded card for what should be a healthy Christmas crowd – almost 700 racegoers attending last Saturday night.
Arguably the pick of the night’s races is the 12th and final race at 9.39pm, an A1 featuring Kim Billingham-Hine’s Thinking Time who recently won six races on the spin and Taberner’s Bangon The Clock.
Meanwhile, Monmore will be welcoming a new trainer to the ranks in the new year with John Walton making the move from Sheffield.
Walton previously trained at Monmore several years ago and will officially rejoin the track on January 1.
