While the Mark and Daniel Gatt kennelmates Boyce Road and Ritza Hattie are both odds-on favourites in early TAB fixed odds betting for Friday night's Group 1 Newcastle Herald National Derby and Dogpro National Futurity finals at The Gardens, the box draws suggest they will both be competitively run affairs.
Ritza Hattie was very impressive running down Zipping Delta in last Friday's second semi-final in a smart 29.55, however, box eight has certainly done her no favours, and Daniel Gatt said he has serious concerns going to this week's feature.
"She had developed a bad habit of missing the start which is a concern," Daniel said after her semi-final win.
"She has missed the start here two weeks in a row so we'll have to do some work with her this week and hopefully get her jumping out a lot better.
"Before the heat here she was virtually faultless at the start. She would miss is every now and then but not as bad as she has at her past two starts.
"It is a worry because in the big races at The Gardens you have to jump so we will be doing a lot of work with her to rectify that."
Tahmoor trainer Neil Falk expects opening Futurity semi-final runner-up Smashing Sally to improve in this week's final after she led and was run down by the Ryan Tredway trained Little Satisfies in the first semi-final in a much slower 30.03.
"I think I might have went a bit easy on her in the lead-up to the semi-final," Falk said.
"She missed the start in her heat so we did some box work with her in the lead up to the semi-final and she came out running. I was surprised to see her get run down but she's in the final and has drawn a lot better in box two this week."
Boyce Road (pictured, white rug) will start from box one in the National Derby final and the Group 1 Sportingbet Paws Of thunder finalist had no luck when fourth behind Evil Punk last Friday.
Boyce Road will start the final from box one with the impressive Evil Punk in two.
Evil Punk led throughout from box one to win his semi-final in 29.59, while Zipping Brock recorded 29.54 to win the second qualifier.
Trainer Jim Coyle was happy when Evil Punk drew box two for the final.
"He finally drew an inside box in his semi-final and showed what he can do and has come up with a good draw again in the final," he said.
"This dog has had injuries that people don't know about and has overcome them and is racing very well."
Group 1 Newcastle Herald National Derby (515m) Box draw
