Springbok: Favourites dominate the first round

Nick Savva: Trains Springbok leading fancy Westmead Melanie

  PICTURE: EDWARD WHITAKER  

WESTMEAD MELANIE, red-hot ante-post favourite for the williamhill.com Springbok crown, launched her bid in tremendous style at Wimbledon onSaturday night, but a plethora of first-class performances in the other first-round heats suggest this is a much stronger competition than her supporters may have anticipated.

Despite a bump at the start, the Nick Savva-trained bitch flew down the back-straight to reel-in leader Forest Legend, and stormed clear to score by three and a half lengths, covering the 480-metre hurdles course in 29.69sec.
However, that time was eclipsed by Any Questions (29.28sec), Crofter (29.31sec) and Cabra Legend (29.46sec), all three novices landing their qualifiers in impressive wide-margin style.
Any Questions, the 4-5 favourite, dominated heat five from trap rise, and came home three and three-quarter lengths clear of Swift Attack, while Crofter, another locally-trained runner, led at the first bend and rapidly drew seven and a quarter lengths away from Pretty Maldini, his jumping particularly clean and efficient.
Cabra Legend, undoubtedly the best drawn greyhound of the entire night, paced up smoothly on the outside to lead off the second bend, and duly accelerated clear of Siege Of Venice, scoring by six lengths.
He gives the impression there is still plenty of improvement to come. All three performances gave their respective ante-post backers high hopes they can reach Tuesday week's decider at the very least.
Razldazl Zamba, trained by hurdles enthusiast Ricky Holloway, wasn't particularly quick away in heat two, but he soon seized command in a five-runner field, and slammed Catunda Ramos by five and a half lengths in 29.75sec. Fast, fluent jumping characterised his display.
Lenson Teddy lowered the colours of 5-4 favourite Legal Rebel in the final heat, scoring by two and a half lengths in 29.77sec.

TRAP draw for Friday's semi-finals:
First semi: 1 Westmead Melanie, 2 Forest Legend, 3 Air Force Ollie, 4 Pretty Maldini, 5 Siege Of Venice, 6 Royal Premium (m).
Second semi: 1 Bingo Boy, 2 Catunda Ramos, 3 Any Questions (m), 4 Handy Manny (m), 5 Razldazl Zamba (w), 6 Cabra Legend (w).
Third semi: 1 Legal Rebel, 2 Swift Attack, 3 Affane Master (w), 4 Highview Major (w), 5 Crofter (w), 6 Lenson Teddy (w).