.jpg)
Emerging pacer Fighter Command is the strongest lasting equine legacy to Greg Sugars.
Before Sugars, who was just 40 and at the peak of powers, passed suddenly on April 26, Fighter Command was his project.
A big, raw and highly gifted gelding with the potential to be a star of the sport.
Sugars knew and would tell his close mate, James Herbertson.
“Hes From Heaven and Fighter Command were the same age and came up together. I’ve always loved Hes From Heaven, but Greg kept telling me Fighter Command was better,” he said.
“We’d still be arguing about it now if he was here.”
Sugars’ wife, Jess Tubbs, trains Fighter Command, but it is Herbertson who has “inherited” the driving since Sugars’ devastating and unexplained passing.
Together, they head to Hobart on Saturday night with Fighter Command, chasing a golden ticket into the world’s richest harness race, the $2.1mil TAB Eureka at Menangle on September 6.
Sugars will be in the front of their minds.
It was Sugars who took the reins 12 months ago at Hobart when Fighter Command won the $80,000 Beautide and snared the resultant Tasracing slot into the TAB Eureka.
Excitement turned to heartbreak a few weeks later and just days out from the TAB Eureka when Fighter Command was struck down with a twisted bowel and spent days fighting for his life.
His TAB Eureka dream was over and it would be six months before he made it back to the racetrack.
Fighter Command has raced eight times on the comeback trail for two wins, a second, a third and two fourths.
Tubbs has given him a deliberately slow and meticulous build-up with redemption in mind.
“He’s still a big baby and learning, but the motor is there,” Herbertson said.
“Jess has done a great job with him and we’ve seen progress this campaign. A few starts back there was a scrimmage and he had to duck and weave through them, something he’d have galloped for a year ago.
“But he’s still a work in progress. He’s not quite there mentally yet.
“It’s as much knowing when to switch on and off. Sometimes he’ll be keen on the (starting) gate, others he won’t want to be there. Then he’ll switch off at a stage of the race you want him focused and raring to go.
“It’s all those one per-centers he needs to get right if he’s going to be the horse Greg thought he could be.”
Quirks aside, Fighter Command should win the Beautide.
“I spoke to Mitch Ford (local driver) and he said he should beat the Tassie horses by a fair way,” Herbertson said.
“I guess he did beat them easily last year and he’s got his act together a lot more since then.
“But the Eureka will be a different story. It’s not far away and it’s a race where he’ll need to get it all together.
“Bay Of Biscay is the (Eureka) favourite. I’d say this guy has as much talent, but Bay Of Biscay has more manners and is more versatile right now.”
