After the historic opening of its world first J-Curve track last Saturday night, Traralgon will return to the spotlight this Friday night for eight ‘must win’ heats of the Group 2 SEN Track Traralgon Cup.

Expert form analyst The Watchdog has studied TAB’s ‘All In’ market on the Cup final, to be held next Wednesday night, and he believes Typhoon Sammy, which has drawn Box 4 in the last heat for champion mentor Jason Thompson, is a deserved favourite at $5.

Click HERE  for TAB’s ‘All In’ Traralgon Cup market

“He’s one of the best one-turn greyhounds in the game – along with Ferdinand Boy – and he’s back to his best, I think. His last couple of runs have been really good. There’s not a lot of depth in his event. If ‘Sammy’ does everything right at box-rise he should be off and gone.”

Typhoon Sammy broke the Bendigo 425m track record in the Cup heats in October, before running third in the final to Paua Of Buddy, which will make his first appearance since his Group 2 Bendigo Cup triumph when he exits Box 1 in Friday night’s sixth heat.

The Watchdog’s $50 spend

$30 on Typhoon Sammy to win at $5
$15 on Lala Kiwi to win at $16
$5 on Shima Punga to win at $151

Trained locally by Steve White, Paua Of Buddy is the $5.50 second elect in ‘All In’ betting, but while The Watchdog expects him to qualify for the final, he’s adopting a wait-and-see approach.

“I think he’ll get the job done. The only concern with him is that he’s going to need a good draw in the final. Typhoon Sammy can draw pretty much any box – he’s got that brilliant early speed – but Paua Of Buddy is still learning what it’s all about. The $5.50 is his right price but I wouldn’t want to take that just as yet.”

Searching for value, The Watchdog feels Group 1 Melbourne Cup runner-up Lala Kiwi is over the odds at $16, while he’s also identified another Andrea Dailly contender in Shima Punga at a massive $151 quote.

“I think people forget that prior to going so well in town, Lala Kiwi ran some really quick times around Geelong and Ballarat, over similar distances to what she faces at Traralgon. From Box 1, there should be no excuses. She’ll get every chance to qualify and if she comes up with ‘the red’ in the final, she goes around $4, so I think the $16 is a really good price.

“I think there’s one really big value bet and that has to be Shima Punga. He goes around in a strong heat – he takes on Ferdinand Boy and Ad Astra, but this dog has an amazing turn of foot, this one-bend track should suit him, and if he can get a little bit of room in the first 50m he’ll put himself right in contention.”

WATCH: TYPHOON SAMMY (4) was one-tenth of a second outside the Warragul 400m track record in a time of 22.10sec on January 2.     Results