Maiden opens and their current worth

Maiden opens

The new dog arrives in the kennel. 

Get all the paperwork, drugs testing and qualifying trials out of the way and hope that the grader doesn’t still operate to the ‘old GRA’ way and give your shiny new arrival a debut two grades higher than he could ever win.

Alternatively, or course, you could stick him in a ‘maiden’.

Depending on the track and the dog, that might be an easier option than a A2 or even A4. Or is it?

For dog men of old, the whole concept of a race for dogs who might not be good enough would have them shaking their heads.

There was a time when you would be desperately hoping that your dog might be considered of sufficient calibre even to be accepted for an open race.

In 2025 though, a maiden open might simply be a race cobbled together to give a travelling trainer an extra runner. 

Or simply in lieu of a trial (with prize money!).

Or maybe a way for filling another four or five-dog field with dogs of varying abilities and running styles that couldn’t be fitted in anywhere else.

‘I was going to put him in the A2, but shall I stick him in the maiden instead?’.

The earliest record that we have of a ‘maiden’ took place at Romford in April 1956, though we are certainly not claiming it was the first ever. Besides, all six runners had open race form.

Trainers have often made full use of the confined status to their best advantage. Ricky Holloway famously entered Airforce Spirit in three maiden events before he had contested the first and won the lot in five days. No longer possible under the four-day rule, of course.

Similarly, Richard Devenish managed a five timer with Ballymac Jake by winning inter-track heats at Peterborough and Wimbledon, followed by the final, and then two closely-spaced maidens in quick succession.

Back in 2020, Hayley Keightley picked up the Henlow Maiden Derby as a successful first competition for her new Irish star, Roxholme Olaf.

Back in February, Mark Wallis introduced Olaf’s first pup in a maiden open at Towcester, Mongys Wild.

But then the champion trainer has ‘form’ for this sort of thing. Last September he sneaked a new dog called Proper Heiress into a Towcester maiden. 

How sick would you feel being the half length runner-up in that? Particularly if your name was Droopys Plunge.

So what are the myths and realities?

We looked at all the opens through to the end of August and of the 3,011 races, 685 (23%) were designated as maidens.

Of those, Romford staged the most (97), unsurprising since they also staged the most opens in general, 398, which works out at just over 24%.

The next question is, how many of those maiden open winners are good enough to win in unconfined company?

We decided to look at the maiden open winners for the first three months of the year, there were 249.

Of those, way less than half (110) had gone on to win an unconfined open in the next five months, and we have included the maiden heat winners who then went on to win the Category 3 final.

As for the calibre of the winners, there are so many figures involved as to make a full listing impossible, but here are a few pointers.

Of the 40 fastest open-winning times over Romford’s 400m, there were only three maiden winners: Airtech Amigo (23.78) was the quickest of the trio, and the joint-30th fastest overall.

Of the 122 575m opens, there were three in the top 30 times, headed by Gothic Kitty with a 34.94 run (joint 16th). Of the 40 slowest times, 24 were maiden winners.

Of the 279 500m opens staged at Towcester, there were only four maiden winners in the top 75. The quickest was 28.79 winner Kranky Drake (joint 35th fastest).