The first two finishers in each heat will earn the right to contest the final.
The Lisa Cole-trained Bigtime Paddy made the trip across to race in the Melbourne Cup heats two seasons ago, after he won the 2017 Waterloo Cup final.
Cole has launched a serious assault on this year's edition – she lines up three greyhounds in today's Cambridge heat.
She has accepted with four runners tomorrow evening, while she will take another three chasers north to contest the Manukau heat.
The recent Wanganui Cup winner Bigtime Cooper is the ideal greyhound to take over to race on Melbourne's Sandown Park track.
To feature against the very best greyhounds across the Tasman requires a greyhound with blinding early pace.
Bigtime Cooper owns volumes of that asset, as seen in his Wanganui Cup victory.
Yes, he was run down late in last Friday's main 520m event, however he commands respect even from his poor five trap draw tomorrow evening.
It was his kennelmate Bigtime Rod who gunned down Cooper late last week when he clocked in his tidy 30.11s gallop.
He achieved that win after jumping from trap eight – tomorrow evening he receives an improved two trap draw.
Bigtime Annie is a litter sister to Bigtime Cooper and she also owns sharp early pace.
She must place herself straight onto the pace when she hops away from trap seven here.
Looming as the biggest threat to the Cole runners is the Angela Turnwald-prepared Nature's Gent.
He's a deadly chaser from the one trap, having won or placed in all 14 of his races from the ace.
The multiple Group race winner will race from that trap here.
Finishing third in last Friday's 520m event was the locally Brian Marsh-trained Tyson's Quest.
He can delivered another competitive effort from trap four tomorrow evening.
