Stan James Laurels preview: semi-final one
The second round of the Stan James Laurels is set to start Thursday night at Belle Vue. The first round produced some interesting results, the most notable being Mill Pinpoint’s elimination from the Laurels
after falling on the third bend of his race.
Buck Yahoo, the Laurels favourite, is still around and will race in the second heat, but he was beaten by Jolly Poacher and Sunoak Crystal last week.
The second round narrows the field at a quicker pace than the first round, as only two hounds advance from each race instead of three.
Stan James Laurels 1st semi-final
The first trap of the first semi-final will house Cape Time. He finished third in his first round heat, and will have a whole new group to race against in the second round. He’s got a tough field to race
against, although it could have been much worse considering the field in the second semi-final. In his career, Cape has finished first in more than half his races. Still, he’ll have to have a better race in the semi-final than in the first round if he wants
to earn a spot in the final.
In trap two is Magna Buddy, another third place finisher from the first round. Buddy fell victim to some minor bumping on the first bend last week after taking the early lead. He was the race favourite,
and probably will be again in this semi-final. It was fluke that he had trouble on the first bend, and he did well to recover from it, earning his spot in the second round. It will be another fluke if he misses the final.
Jordan Light will run from trap three. Light was able to take advantage of Pinpoint’s fall in the first round, but he will still be a strong candidate to finish in the top three anyway. That heat saw four
hounds that all deserved to be in the second round, one of them had to go. It probably would have been Light that missed the cut-off, he was in last place when the fall happened, but don’t rule him out of this one.
Ping The Lids will race from the fourth trap. He finished third in his heat, but was in close with the top two hounds. Lids could find himself in a similar position in the semi-final, if he does, a third
place finish will not be enough to advance.
November Weather was a 12-1 long shot in the first round who also took advantage of Pinpoint’s fall last week. Weather was already in a good position, but late surges by Jordan Light and Yahoo Jamie dropped
Weather into third. If Pinpoint, or the hound he collided with, Jordansoilutions, had not fallen there’s a good chance they would have passed him too. He’ll go from trap five.
In the final trap is Sunoak Crystal, who beat Bucks Yahoo by 4¼ lengths last week, but also finished 5 lengths behind Jolly Poacher. A similar showing is unlikely from Crystal. She only finished ahead
of Yahoo because he had a slight collision on the third bend that dropped him back.
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