THE inaugural Coral Winter Derby Final (490m), worth £10,000 to the winner, takes place at Hove on Thursday and will feature a great clash between two big-race winners already at the Sussex circuit in King Turbo and Sporting Dave (pictured above).

Both won their semi-finals on Thursday, which means Coral Greyhound Olympic champion King Turbo (Liz McNair) has a chance of another major victory at Hove, as does last year’s Sussex Cup winner in Sporting Dave (Seamus Cahill).

The pair come from kennels both doubly represented in the Category One feature on Thursday with the McNair-trained King Turbo joined by kennelmate King Dylan and Sporting Dave joined by Droopys Nirvana for Hove trainer Cahill.

The Cahill pair both won their semis on Thursday, with Droopys Nirvana (28.79sec -30) making all from Volcanic Reef (Heather Dimmock), while Sporting Dave won in identical all-the-way fashion from King Dylan in a fastest 28.61sec (-30).

King Turbo led at halfway in the second semi-final, catching leader Easter Week (Matt Dartnall) before halfway before holding the renewed challenge of the home-trained runner to score by three-quarters of a length in 28.90sec.

The performance of King Turbo and King Dylan’s progress to the final delighted Rab McNair, husband of trainer Liz, on the day the pair announced they were pulling out of the Gain Greyhound Nutrition Trainers’ Championship meeting at Sheffield next month.

“The travelling and the fact we’ve only a small team here means it’s too much of a commitment for us, although we say well done to the sponsors and to Sheffield for staging it,” added McNair. Incidentally, Matt Dartnall now steps in for the Owlerton showpiece.

On the Hove performances of his pair, McNair added: “We delighted with both and the dogs are just coming on great. The weather’s improved of late and, with the lighter evenings to come, that’ll be a help too. We gave them an easy time over the winter.

“Dylan is just like rest of the litter, getting better with age, and we’ve been really impressed with his progress. He’s looking like a Derby dog, but at this stage we’ll not be putting pressure on Turbo. He might be, but we’ll see how things go. He’s well over three now.

“Having said that, he’s shown unbelievable pace again. He had a good few weeks off too, so will have needed his run in the heats but was as fresh as a daisy this morning. We’ve not pushed them, but he’ll come forward hopefully for the final naturally.

“Either way, and however it goes on Thursday, we’ve been delighted with what we’ve seen on our visits to Hove. The 490m distance seems to be working well and Coral and Ladbrokes are really driving things forward just now.

“Look at the new (Coral) Winter Derby at Hove, the (Coral) Golden Sprint at Romford, the (Ladbrokes) Puppy Derby at Monmore and they’ve just had the (Ladbrokes) Golden Jacket at Crayford. That’s a fantastic start to the year for owners and trainers,” he said.

“You can see the refurbishment going on at Hove and the future looks promising there.”

Form and trap draw for Thursday’s final: www.brightonandhovegreyhoundstadium.co.uk/result/racecardform/2019/03/07racecardform1.pdf