Melia aiming to make Irish Derby final with A Lucky Julie

Kildare trainer Jerry Melia will be represented in the semi finals of the Irish Greyhound Derby semi finals at Shelbourne Park this weekend after flying through her quarter final heat last Saturday.

A Lucky Julie was a half a length winner of heat two last weekend, beating Cheap Sandwiches over the line in a time of 23.91 seconds with both runners making it through to the semi's on Saturday.

The daughter of Ballymac Bolger will line up in heat one of the IGD semi finals on Saturday at 9.06pm as the Melia runner goes for glory in the €125,000 contest, which comes to a close on November 23 with the Final.

A Lucky Julie finished third in her opening heat on November 2 but improved drastically when lining up for her quarter final outing, shaving half a second off her previous time to make it through to the semi final stage.

BoyleSports, sponsors of the competition, have A Lucky Julie as a long shot to scoop the top prize at 25/1, with only Singalong Dolly behind her in the betting at 40/1.

British trainer Graham Holland holds a very strong hand in this year's competition and he has the current 5/4 favourite to land the prestigious prize with Bockos Diamond, priced up as a 5/4 favourite to win it all ahead of stablemate Bombay Pat at 8/1.

BoyleSports Irish Greyhound Derby odds 

Bockos Diamond 5/4 

Bombay Pat 8/1 

Carrick Aldo, BoyleSports Bob, Cheap Sandwiches 10/1 

Callaway Knegare 12/1 

Da Bold Falcon, Marck On Freddie, Ballinabola Jim 14/1 

Seven Beach 20/1 

A Lucky Julie 25/1 

Singalong Dolly 40/1