Kelly Bravo has a strong hand in next Friday night's Group 2 Cyril Rowe Bulli Gold Cup after training two of the five heat winners, including fastest qualifier Ride The Rails.
Ride The Rails ($3.60) could not have been more impressive in his heat win, leading almost all of the way to register a 7 3/4 length victory in 25.94.
Click here to view a replay of Ride The Rails win.
Ride The Rails was the only greyhound to break 26 seconds - a feat made all the more impressive considering the very wet conditions at Bulli.
"He is going to be four soon but he's just loving racing and is flying at the moment," Bravo said following the race.
The veteran greyhound has drawn box one in final on Friday night and Bravo is hopeful he can perform as well as he did in the heats.
"Ride The Rails hasn't won a race from box one. If he'd drawn further out, I'd be much more optimistic but he might struggle from the red," she said.
"He is probably our best chance if he uses the box properly but we do have a big opinion of Kayda Shae and he is also in a with a good chance."
Kayda Shae ($1.80) was Bravo's other heat winner after he jumped cleanly from box two and held off an early challenge from Let It Develop to register a 5 1/4 length win in 26.23.
"Kayda Shae is promising young dog who is still learning," Bravo said
"He ran well and needed to work hard to get to lead but he managed it well. It was his first time travelling too, so it was good to see he could handle it."
Kayda Shae will wear the yellow rug in the final on Friday night and Bravo believes the greyhound can handle the squeeze draw.
"Kayda Shae is brilliant out of the boxes but will have to make his own luck from box five."
Bravo was impressed with the way Ride The Rails and Kayda Shae handled the track in their first ever run at Bulli.
"I wasn't worried about them not having seen the track before because Brett (Bravo) had spoken to a few people like Anthony Azzopardi and decided they could handle it," she said.
"Bulli is a big, open track which is very similar to a few down here in Victoria they, so it wasn't a huge issue."
Bravo will have three runners in the $40,000-to-the-winner final, with Waymore's Blues also qualifying after finishing runner-up to Wuxi in the first heat of the night.
Trained by Luke Azzopardi, Wuxi ($12.90) appeared to relish the sloppy conditions, holding off the fast finishing Waymore's Blues to win in 26.33.
"Ride The Rails and Kayda Shae were the main two we wanted to qualify and having Waymore's Blues in the final as well is just a bonus," Bravo said.
"Waymore's Blues likes racing out wide so box eight should suit him in the final but the question will be whether he has the pace to get across."
Other heat winners were the Troy Murray trained Aston Wingard ($10.80) in 26.47 and the Jason Fletcher-trained Fantastic Sid ($3.50) in 26.50.
The box draw for next Friday's Group 2 Cyril Rowe Bulli Gold Cup is: 1. Ride The Rails 2. Fantastic Sid 3. Fancy Top 4. Wuxi 5. Kayda Shae 6. Winsome Jacko 7. Aston Wingard 8. Waymore's Blues 9. Let It Develop 10. Estranged
