Behind Enemy Lines: Greyhound Derby final

Hear from the layers ahead of this year's Star Sports & Orchestrate English Derby final:

Q1 How has business been so far in this year’s Derby?
Q2 Who is your best and worst result in the final?
Q3 Which round or market generated most interest?
Q4 Who goes off favourite and who will win the final?
Q5 What’s your best bet on Saturday’s Towcester card?

Gerard McGrath
Bet365

Q1 How has business been so far in this year’s Derby?
Business has been great in both the heats and the outright market. Heat turnover has ramped up per race as we’ve got deeper into the competition. Even in the quarters and semis we were able to lay a good spread of runners due to competitiveness.

Q2 Who is your best and worst result in the final?
Hackney Corner would be our worst in a very good book, with all of the big losers gone in earlier rounds. Lennies Eddie would be the best result by some way.

Q3 Which round or market generated most interest?
Last week’s semi-final featured Scooby The Lady, Proper Heiress and Ballymac Ralf, who were virtually co-favourites of three. You could lay all three of them, while Hackney Corner at 6-1 was a super result.

Q4 Who goes off favourite and who will win the final?
It will be very close between Ballymac Duffle on the rail and Ballymac Deniro drawn outside Hackney Corner. If Duffle wasn’t in red and Deniro was drawn inside Hackney, then Deniro would have been 6-4. I’m going to side with Hackney Corner to make all.

Q5 What’s your best bet on Saturday’s Towcester card?
I haven’t done the whole card yet, but Rapido Benny is due a good start and is housed in the right box, so I’ll chance him as I was with him ante-post.

Damian Lonergan
Boylesports

Q1 How has business been so far in this year’s Derby? 
Business has been good without being hectic. Round one was quiet, the punters must have wanted to see them all in action first before getting stuck in. Round three was busy – and of course every jolly won!

Q2 Who is your best and worst result in the final? 
Lennies Eddie would be the best result by a long way, he has a live chance. Ballymac Deniro is a bullet we dodged, of the three Ballymacs he is the healthiest result. Duffle is the bogey.

Q3 Which round or market generated most interest? 
The ante-post market has been alive since the start. Hackney Corner was a terrible result before the off, but that figure has shrunk since. We laid a lot of the UK-trained winner at 4-1 and 5-1. That was a popular market and thankfully went our way.

Q4 Who goes off favourite and who will win the final? 
Ballymac Deniro will go off favourite, but I think Ballymac Duffle is better drawn and will win.

Q5 What’s your best bet on Saturday’s Towcester card? 
Droopys Rated will be very short in the Dorando and Droopys Flare should win. Scooby The Lady is nap material in the consolation race.


Dan Jordon
Coral

Q1 How has business been so far in this year’s Derby? 
The event has been excellent for ante-post business, but we have been a little disappointed with the race-by-race betting. We are very hopeful for this coming Saturday, as Towcester has put on a fantastic card.

Q2 Who is your best and worst result in the final? 
Ballymac Duffle is our only loser in the final with the other four runners all decent winners. Glengar Kane, who went out in the third round, was our worst overall.

Q3 Which round or market generated most interest? 
Semi-finals night was the best so far, helped by it being payday for many plus the Champions League final.

Q4 Who goes off favourite and who will win the final? 
I believe Ballymac Deniro will be the favourite, with a vacant trap on his outside. He has all the qualities to win. After initially falling out the boxes in round one, he has since been more consistent.

Q5 What’s your best bet on Saturday’s Towcester card? 
Scooby The Lady (8.58pm) has serious early pace, so I’m hoping she’ll come out on top in a competitive Derby consolation race.


Jamie McBride
Hills

Q1 How has business been so far in this year’s Derby? 
The turnover for our outright market has been pleasing. We will comfortably exceed 2025 levels, helped no doubt by offering industry-leading place terms at various stages of the competition.

Q2 Who is your best and worst result in the final?
Our best result is Ballymac Ralf and our worst result is Ballymac Duffle, whom we have laid as big as 50-1. Scooby The Lady proved consistently popular throughout the competition and she would have been another poor result if she had made the final.

Q3 Which round or market generated most interest?
Offering eight places for a period before the first round proved popular as did our to qualify for the final market prior to the semi-finals. Ballymac Iroko proved extremely popular in that particular market.

Q4 Who goes off favourite and who will win the final?
Despite drifting slightly after the draw was made, I would still expect Ballymac Deniro to shade favouritism. I don’t have any strong views as to who will win, I think it will be whoever turns handiest between the three Ballymac dogs.

Q5 What’s your best bet on Saturday’s Towcester card?
The Plate final has the potential to be messy with six railers so I think 8-1 Ballymac Blanco represents decent value. He has the potential to be in the lead or very close to it and should give punters a run for their money at juicy enough odds.


George Smith
Ladbrokes

Q1 How has business been so far in this year’s Derby? 
Business has been good with plenty of action on heats and outright markets. A lot of bookmaker-friendly results in the heats has been good for us and now we’re just hoping for a good result in the final.

Q2 Who is your best and worst result in the final?
Ballymac Duffle will be the worst result in the final, while Lennies Eddie would be good. Scooby The Lady and Proper Heiress were big liabilities so thankfully neither qualified last week.

Q3 Which round or market generated most interest? 
After the first round, business was very lively as some big names were knocked out and some impressive performances shook up the outright market. On the special front, an Irish-trained winner was popular with punters – which is weighed in already!

Q4 Who goes off favourite and who will win the final? 
It will be close between the Ballymacs Deniro and Duffle for favouritism, I think Deniro will edge it. However I fancy Ballymac Ralf, who has a great draw.

Q5 What’s your best bet on Saturday’s Towcester card? 
Scooby The Lady looks a good thing in the consolation race. It’s a very hot race, but drawn in three with Strike It Skye and Underground Gold in five and six, she should be able to get the early lead and make all.


Kaan Hughes
Star Sports

Q1 How has business been so far in this year’s Derby? 
Business has been great. It has steadily picked up each round. The two Fridays were quieter than the Saturdays in the early rounds, but the biggest night was the quarter-finals. This week is the absolute mecca. We can’t wait. Till rolls at the ready!

Q2 Who is your best and worst result in the final?
We’ve seen more bullets fired than a scene in Saving Private Ryan. We’ve done the place money on Hackney Corner. We laid all the Ballymacs to take out the same amount, and have laid a ‘Lennies’ prefix winner. I think a Ballymac Deniro win is the best result at this stage.

Q3 Which round or market generated most interest?
Quarter-finals night, where the competitions started alongside the main event. We offer betting with and without the favourite on-course, so some of those real short ones taken out of the betting gives great opportunities for customers to still take an opinion.

Q4 Who goes off favourite and who will win the final?
Ballymac Duffle. You could argue Ballymac Deniro may have one less variable to worry about with the six withdrawn. But Duffle is perfectly housed. He’s the talking dog and I expect to just see plenty of business for him which will move the market.

Q5 What’s your best bet on Saturday’s Towcester card?
Me worrying something will go wrong with our equipment and not getting anything to eat pre-racing! In all seriousness, I haven’t had a chance to go through the card completely yet, but I can’t wait to see Ballymac Iroko over six bends.

Want top greyhound betting advice and the latest greyhound racing news? Make sure you take a look at Racing Post Greyhounds for more

Important information: This article may contain links to offers or promotions that were available at the time of publication. These offers may have since expired or changed.

Offers are handpicked and come from operators that our experts have first-hand experience of. Opening an account via one of these links will earn revenue for the Racing Post, which will be used to continue producing our award-winning coverage of horseracing.