The Coral Sussex Cup final is the highlight of this evening’s excellent card at Hove which is going to be shown live on Sky Sports 1. Tonight’s show gets under way at 7:30pm and includes a total of eight live races, with the big one going off at 9:19pm where Exocet will be bidding to follow up his superb run in last week’s semi-finals. There are seven other open races for greyhound punters to enjoy with the Coral Sprint Trophy and the Coral Puppy Trophy just some of the highlights.
The semi-finals of the Sussex Cup took place this past Thursday night and although there was a big upset in the first heat with the well fancied 7/4f Droopys Jarrow crashing out of the competition, the favourites did do the business in the two other semis. Exocet was particularly impressive when winning in a time of 29.60 for trainer Chris Allsopp, finishing two and a quarter lengths clear of nearest rival Jaytee Lightning. The first semi final saw both Cathys Clown and Bubbly Gold progress to the £10,000 showpiece of Tuesday night’s card.
Here are our best bets for tonight’s live Sky dogs card at Hove.
7:34pm
Let’s see if we can get things off to a winning start with a greyhound who looks to be extremely well drawn in trap six here. Islas Scolari finished third in the first of last Thursday’s Sussex Cup semis behind Cathys Clown and Bubbly Gold. Seamus Cahill’s dog lost very little in defeat and I can’t really see why the bookies have put two other runners in front of the striped jacket in the betting. Take the 7/2 on offer with Betfred.
Back Trap 6 Islas Scolari at 7/2 with Betfred
7:49pm
The Charlie Lister trained Southern Mesut has looked like a serious greyhound in his last two starts and can make it a hat-trick of victories this evening. He landed the odds with relative ease here last week in the heats and certainly has the best of the draw again tonight. The biggest threats to my selection look to be in the outside traps and I’m hoping that Mesut can keep well away from those rivals en-route to another prize here.
Back Trap 1 Souther Mesut at 2/1 with Betfred
9:19pm
While I have been impressed with Exocet’s performances in this competition thus far, I’m not sure that the 7/4 on offer about Chris Allsopp’s runner represents much value. Don’t get me wrong, he did it very nicely last time but I’m not sure it was good enough to warrant being more than two points shorter than anything else in the field. Paul Young’s Bubbly Gold suffered a shock reverse at the hands of Cathys Clown in the semi finals but I’m prepared to give this greyhound another chance at juicy looking odds of 9/2. Up until being slowly away last time, Bubbly Gold had a perfect record over this course and distance. He can make amends in front of the Sky cameras.
Back Trap 5 Bubbly Gold at 9/2