The Betfred Eclipse is the last major Category One competition of the year, open to dogs in the UK, and the final on Thursday (live on Sky Sports) looks to be one of the most competitive of the year.
It isn’t easy to be confident which dog will start favourite, let alone which will win!
The worst ante-post result for Blue Square, is Mark Wallis’s star Eye On the Storm. The October 2007 son of Droopys Vieri was backed from an early morning 6-4 into 4-6 on Saturday night, and continued his impressive run of form when winning the first of the Semi-Finals.
Eye Onthe Storm was outpaced early by both Beautiful City and Bandicoot Tipoki, the favourite then show terrific pace up and took on Bandicoot Tipoki at the first bend. Dipping his shoulder in bullish style, Eye Onthe Storm knocked Tipoki out of the way and powered to the front entering the back straight. Clear by the third bend, he maintained a ferocious pace to lead home the running on Frisby Forfun by almost three lengths, recording 29.99sec for the 500-metres.
That time was eclipsed in the third semi, when Head Iton Ellis, made the most of a plot rails berth to easily beat Romeo Maldini in a classy 29.86sec.
Lenson Bolt, run out of second spot close home, was later reported to have finished lame by trainer Tony Collett, who said: “It was disappointing to see him get caught on the line, but to be honest had he qualified I wouldn’t have been able to run him. He’s lame but until I get him checked out by a vet I won’t know the extent of the problem. I don’t think it’s too serious, but no matter that’s him for this year and he’ll be put away for the winter and brought back for next year’s major events.”
Charlie Lister’s Jordansoilutions confirmed first round form with kennelmate Fear Zafonic when showing a clean pair of paws to the field in the second semi. The son of Brett Lee hit the lids and opened up a four lengths lead by the mid-point and kept on well in the long home straight on to win by a length and three-quarters in a respectable 30.11sec.
Blue Square bet on the final – 5/2 Jordansoilutions, 11/4 Eye Onthestorm, 11/4 Fear Zafonic, 5/1 Romeo Maldini, 6/1 Head Iton Ellis, 14/1 Frisby Forfun.
The supporting card features the final of the Bonus King Sprint, which includes the prolific Jimmy Lollie. Blue Square's usual super Sky offers of SP+, 10% bonus to correct forecasts and 15% bonus to correct tricasts will be available.