Tralee trainer Liam Dowling runs two dogs in Saturday’s English Derby final with winner’s purse of €175,000

Nothing is beyond Liam Dowling on either track and field, as everybody out there well knows, and the Ballymacelligott maestro has two runners, De Lahdedah and Ballymac Gizmo, in the final of the English Derby at Towcester track this Saturday night.

A total of 186 greyhounds started out in the English Derby and it is a quite remarkable achievement by Dowling to have come through the huge qualifying process and be in there with a mighty chance of winning a very famous classic that carries a winner’s purse of £175,000.

De Lahdedah, which is 9/4 with Paddy Power and 2/1 with Boylesports after getting an unfavourable trap 4 draw, made the final in some style by decisively winning the first semi-final last Saturday night in a time of 28.79. That time was nicely ahead of the 28.98 clocked by Churchfield Syd in short-heading 5/4 Derby favourite, King Memphis, in the second semi-final in which Ballymac Gizmo ran really well to claim the third qualifying place.

King Memphis is the 5/4 favourite with BoyleSports for the £175,000 feature at Towcester Racecourse and Liz McNair’s Puppy Derby winner of 2023 has proved popular among punters to add a Greyhound Derby to his glittering CV.

A 100% record in the opening four heats of this year’s Derby saw King Memphis surge to the top of the market and despite a short-head defeat in last week’s semi-finals, a superb run from the ‘coffin box’ of four puts him well ahead of his conqueror Churchfield Syd (13/2) in the rematch.

Dowling’s other runner, Ballymac Gizmo, is in trap 2 and is priced up at 22/1 with Powers and 20/1 with Boylesports.

Meanwhile BoyleSports Bob, co-owned by BoyleSports founder John Boyle, is rated a 9/2 chance to give Paul Hennessy a third win in the race.

Whyaye Man is also available at 20/1 shots with punters cold on the chances of the inside boxes of 1 and 2.

It will be some notch on his winning belt if Dowling pulls it off on Saturday night and less than half a minute around Towcester is going to determine all. What an important 28 seconds plus that is going to be!

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IT is quite incredible that the number of winners produced by Noel O’Leary’s brood bitch, Loher Baby (now deceased), reached 218 through the victory of Loher Ron (fastest time of 28.80) at last week’s Tuesday SIS meeting at Tralee Track.

Loher Baby produced just three litters and some members of those litters never ran at all, adding to the remarkable uniqueness of the story.

Doubles were recorded by local trainer, Pat McMahon, with Send It Gems (29.26) and Send It Sky (29.94), both owned by his wife, Joan, and by Abbeyfeale trainer, Brian O’Sullivan, with Leahys King (29.78) and Barnora Gino (29.36), both owned by himself.

Other winners: Rahoonagh Lucy, 29.31; Tullahinnell Boy (29.68), Beginish Luke (29.32), Fire Height Gem (29.18), Causeway Teddy (29.06), Tadhg Boher (29.36), Spruce Air (29.19).

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IT might be a bit down the road, but great interest is going to centre on two very valuable upcoming sweepstakes at Tralee Track.

Starting on Friday, July 12, will be the William “Potters” Herlihy Guys And Dolls A3 525 sweepstake, which will carry a handsome winner’s purse of €4,000 thanks to sponsorship by the Herlihy family, of Knocknagoshel.

Two weeks later, we will see the start of the MCP Group Open 750 Sweepstake, which, thanks to sponsorship by the Harty family, of The Spa, Tralee, this is going to be worth €7,000 to the winner The wow factor applies to both, does it not.

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