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Romford doubles for Wallis, Wiley and Young while Jackson dominates Sunderland

There was open race action at Romford and Sunderland on Friday evening with four trainers picking up more than one win.

Matt Newman

26 Jul 2025

Romford doubles for Wallis, Wiley and Young while Jackson dominates Sunderland

Sonique continues her fabulous form at Romford

Fabulous Sonique's love affair with Romford is well documented, making it five straight wins at the London Road venue on Friday night. The veteran runner was picking up the 35th win of her career with another strong display from the front. She was the second half of a double for the Mark Wallis team who saw Mystical Cali off the mark at the seventh time of asking earlier on the card.

Martyn Wiley is having an excellent year for open race winners, taking his tally to 21 courtesy of Daring Hoffa and Bedrock Bella. The former put his name into the top five times of the year over the sprint trip, another from his sire Coolavanny Hoffa to have plenty of early boot. The latter has been knocking on the door of an open race win, getting off the mark with a 24.13 effort.

A third trainer to pick up a Romford double was Paul Young. Betting Buddies and Carters Buddy are both right at the start of their careers with just 15 Romford starts between them for six wins. The first named was in the same maiden final last week that Bedrock Bella contested although the winner of that Cat Three was behind Carters Buddy in his win.

Perhaps the performance of the night came from the David Mullins-trained Brindle Bully. The winner of the Silver Standard in front of the Gone To The Dogs - Live ! cameras last October, he bounced back to winning ways at his home track last week, going quicker last night.

Another who has shown their love of this track is Bacon Roll. Paul Burr's charge still leads all 400m times this year but has shown that she can get the job done elsewhere as well. A semi-finalist in both the ARC Laurels and BetGoodwin Pall Mall, she has won her last three starts at Romford.

There were a couple of shocks on the card. Gothic Kitty was sent off the 2/11 market leader for the 750m contest but she could never reel in Capel Rose for Tony Gifkins. Kilmore Dancer was the other very short one on the card to be turned over, Easy Molly just pulling out enough early on to hold off the 1/3 favourite’s late charge for Richard Yeates.

Whitewood Libre made the final of the Coral Coronation Cup recently and had too much in the tank for Airtech Amigo over the same 575m trip. The latter has made a nice return to six bends but failed in his hat-trick bid at the paws of the Gemma Evans-trained winner.

The final open on the card saw a success for Dave Lee's Ontherun Eden. It was a fifth open race win at the track for the July 23 son of Grangeview Ten, seeing off the speedy Le Pur Sang.

Jackson with a Sunderland treble

Six open races at Sunderland saw half go to the kennel of Carl Jackson. On The Nose, Kiddy Kid and In The Clouds all came home in front for the kennel. The first is a half-brother to the 2025 Derby finalist Sole Mio from a different Droopys Sydney mating to the one which produced another Derby finalist in Mr Chelm. The last of them was in action in the UK for the first time having made a 28.71 winning debut at Shelbourne in June.

Laughil Rex landed a sprint contest for John Watson. The Pelaw raider has landed top grade contests over both two and four bends at his home track recently. The other open race winner on the night was Dean Blackbird's La Princesa. She is only a week away from veteran status but has not been with Blackbird long, breaking her maiden duck in an open last night.