Why this crop of juveniles has me excited – Adam Hamilton

There is something really exciting about this juvenile harness racing crop.

Being trackside and watching a stellar field smash the clock in the inaugural $500,000 Protostar at Albion Park a month ago really highlighted this could be a vintage crop.

The babies paced a scorching 1min50.6sec mile rate for 1660m – many having just their third or fourth starts.

A Queenslander in Fate Awaits won it, but a couple of Victorians went at least as well as the winner.

The performance of favourite and leader The Highlight Reel (Poster Boy) was enormous. He was cutting out the times and in front and absorbing the pressure, while Fate Awaits sat on his back and stalked him.

It took until the very last stride for Fate Awaits to deny The Highlight Reel what would have been a well-earned victory.

It was also impossible to miss the slashing performance of Damien Burns’ Hesitate, who got back to an impossible position and smashed the clock, despite a checkered passage and having to come deep.

You could argue, had Hesitate enjoyed Fate Awaits’ run, he would’ve won the race.

Importantly, The Highlight Reel is by the former star pacer Poster Boy, who is making quite a splash with his first crop. The industry badly needs some serious “home-bred” stallions and Poster Boy could be one.

One of Poster Boy’s first big wins came in the 2YO Vicbred final at Melton in 2017.

That win really sparked a remarkable run of dominance through the Vicbred 2YO finals by Emma Stewart and Clayton Tonkin.

They won both finals in 2017 – Poster Boy (colts and geldings) and Nostra Villa (fillies).

Starting with those 2017 wins, Stewart and Tonkin have won 10 of the 14 Vicbred 2YO finals run.

In 2018, they won both with the ill-fated Centenario and Kualoa, then landed the fillies’ final in 2019 (Maajida) and 2020 (Tough Tilly).

Since surprisingly being winless in 2020 and the Vicbred finals not being held in 2021, Stewart and Tonkin have been unbeaten.

The Lost Storm and Joyful gave them the double in 2022 and Stormryder and Draw A Dream did the same last year.

Now they unleashed what looks like an elite batch of 15 babies on the Vicbred qualifying heats at Bendigo on Wednesday.

No doubt they’ll be the dominance force again, but there looks to be more talent than recent years from rival stables, headed by the likes of Hesitate.

There’s some fascinating clashes right from the first of the eight heats where Storms Collide (gate one) clashes with Forty Love (five), NSW raider Set Up (six), Go Miki (seven) and Crocodile Rocks (nine) in the first colts and geldings qualifier.

Stewart and Tonkin then dominate the second and third races where Let Her Roll and Miss Australiana are the key runners in the first fillies’ heat (race two) and their four runners – Arsenio, Always Hot, Techy Creed and I Am The Storm – hold the key in race three.

One of the heats of the night will see Mick Stanley’s exciting Captain Moore (gate seven) clash with Hesitate, who has drawn awkwardly inside the back row (eight). There’s some other handy ones in there, too.

Stewart and Tonkin’s Bathurst Gold Crown winner Fox Dan will be favourite to make it three wins from as many starts in race seven, while The Highlight Reel should be too classy in the last qualifier of the night (race eight).

The big guns will graduate to the semi-finals on September 7 before the $150,000 final a week later.

by Adam Hamilton, for Harness Racing Victoria