Last week’s top tip Springwood Ali duly won the final of the A1 Owners Bonus Series on Saturday evening.

While he went to traps as the 2-1 favourite, that price looked good value in running.

As I had explained last week, the dog is not known as the best of starters so it was essential that he was in contention early on.

Fortunately, he got a flying start when the traps went up coming out in second position, by the second bend he had overcome a couple of bumps from the opposition and took up the lead. From that point, the outcome never looked in doubt.

The first race on the card was won by Crown Lucky who was having only his second race here. The manner of the win will have pleased trainer Julie Luckhurst as her new recruit put five lengths between himself and the runner-up in this A5 grade race.

Performance of the weekend for me came from debutant Redstone Maze who simply ran away from her opponents, romping home eight lengths clear in 23.86seconds over 380metres. This was an A7 grade race and it would appear that the dog should have been in at least one grade higher. Having said that, the Racing Office only have the dog’s three trial efforts to go on.

Trainer Barry O’Sullivan also had a debut win from Kingsmill Super in an A3 event which did not surprise me given that the dog has had Open race experience previously.

The dog has considerable experience, having had 36 competitive races at no fewer than 10 different venues before this race here. Of those races, only two were not Open class races, so it was no surprise that he came home at odds of 2-1fav. Interestingly, the win time of 24.08 was nothing special and in his last three races at Hove and Sittingbourne, he had finished in the last two on each occasion at odds of 12-1 twice and 16-1.

Was this a return to form?