CHAMPION greyhound Fernando Bale added the Group Two Southern Cross Ten Bendigo Cup to his expanding CV with a commanding performance in Friday night’s final.
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Fernando Bale, trained by Andrea Dailly, stepped quickly from box three and had the 425m race sewn up inside the first 100m.
Fernando Bale was too strong for a gallant Shared Equity, winning in a time of 23.40 seconds, just 0.01 of a second outside of the track record he set in last week’s heats.
Shared Equity jumped smartly as well, but just didn’t have the firepower to reel in the champ.
Outsider Breathing Fire finished third ahead of Billo’s Pick.
It was Fernando Bale’s 15th consecutive win and 20th from his past 21 starts.
The $47,000 first prize took his career prize money to more than $680,000.
The support events to the Cup provided some thrilling racing.
The Brooke Ennis-trained Esparza was well-backed to win the Diamond Vision Photography Winter Cup (660m).
At the halfway mark of the race the greyhound’s backers would have been worried.
However, Esparza made good ground along the rails around the home turn and then surged through a gap at the top of the straight to win impressively in a time of 38.07 seconds.
Esparza defeated early leader Alexis Kelton, with Magic Earner in third place.
The GRV VBIS Maiden Final was full of promising greyhounds, but is was Argenta who won in a thrilling finish.
The Mark Delbridge-trained dog started brilliantly from box eight and was then forced to hold the fast-finishing outsider Crave in the final 50m.
Arguably the most impressive winner of the night was To The Galo’s all-the-way win in the Ready To Race Mid Year Bonus (425m).
The Philip Smith-trained chaser blew his rivals away with a dominant performance from the red box.
To The Galo’s left placegetters Sisco Wake and Beyond Rapid in his wake and looks set to have better wins in store for his connections.