English Greyhound Derby favourite Eye Onthe Storm
Wimbledon has announced that this year’s williamhill.com English Derby will consist of 215 hopefuls attempting to claim the £75,000 prize. The significant increase of entries means anything can happen this year, but regardless of the possibilities, the bookmakers still favour Eye Onthe Storm.
The John Keefe-owned dog also known as Frankie is two and a half years of age and had a fantastic year in 2009 to land the Best Newcomer at the Greyhound Board of Great Britain awards held at the London Hilton Metropole earlier in January.
His total achievements in 2009 consist of 14 open wins, including category 1 victories in the Caffreys Puppy Classic and a high class Betfred Eclipse at Nottingham where he destroyed his rivals.
In 2010 Storm has maintained his form to go on and win this year’s Blue Riband at Hall Green, an event in which he also broke the track record on final night. Storm was also a key player at Doncaster on March 23rd where his victory crowned trainer Mark Wallis the new Betfair Trainers’ Champion.
In his last 20 races he has only lost three and up until now in his racing career has run a total of 31 races and cashed £27,645 in the process. He's definitely a dog which has proven that he can compete with the best.
It was a shame to not see him compete in the Bettor.com Scottish Derby because he is truly the only greyhound I can envision at this present time to have stood a realistic chance of winning the £1m Triple Crown offered by Bettor.com.
Sponsors of the English Derby William Hill have however announced that they will be making a pay-out of a £25,000 bonus if the winner of the English Derby goes on to land a victory at the William Hill Classic at Sunderland, while a further £50,000 will be applied if the winner goes on to produce a treble, winning The William Hill All England Cup at Newcastle.
Storm had a pretty average trial at Wimbledon this week, clocking a time of 28.84sec, but trainer Mark Wallis was perfectly happy with his performance claiming the track was running slower than usual.
Charlie Lister’s Greyhound of the Year Fear Zafonic ran to his form after pinging to clock 28.41sec. Zafonic will be hungry for the title this year, having missed out last year by three spots in the final to another member of the Mark Wallis Imperial Kennels’ Kinda Ready.
The 2009 English Derby Champion won’t be able to make a title defence this year due to shortage of time to prepare and recover from an injury.
Storm can be backed at 7-1 by sponsors of the Derby and stands a very strong chance to put the rest of the field through its paces to become the new English Derby Champion.
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