While success in Saturday night’s Nutrien Breeders Crown three-year-old fillies' final is not a matter of life or death for veteran trainer Gary Lawlor, he knows it was once for his talented pacer Sweet Ideal.

Sweet Ideal, rated by the 70-year-old Lawlor as “the best horse I’ve had”, was barely 10 days old when she suffered a severe attack of colic.

“We had a bad storm and she got colic and I sat in the float nursing her all the way from Camperdown to Lethbridge,” Lawlor said.

“She was nearly gone by the time we got there, but somehow they brought her back to life.”

Lawlor broke-in the daughter of Sweet Lou and it wasn’t long before he realised she would supercede multiple metropolitan winner Bad Billy as the best horse he’d thrown a harness over.

“She has high speed and intelligence,” he said.

With Lawlor’s son Darryl in the sulky, Sweet Ideal strung together five consecutive wins before finishing third behind the Emma Stewart-trained pair Kiss and Waterfront in her Breeders Crown heat.

“From barrier five, we hope to slot in somewhere and drive her for luck,” he said.

Lawlor’s father Joe was a prominent horseman and breeder who raced horses with the Heytesbury prefix.

Gary Lawlor is arguably the youngest person to train winners at the Showgrounds, Moonee Valley and Melton.

“I trained Abbe Peak who won at the Showgrounds when I was 18,” he said.

One of 15 children, Lawlor’s entrance into the world was at the behest of the harness racing gods.

“My mother gave my father a brand new sulky as a Christmas present and decided to jump in and test it out - with that the horse reared up and tipped her out,” he said.

“The following day on Boxing Day I was born a month premature.”

The formidable Stewart stable dominates the market in the three-year-old colts and geldings' final where the combination of barrier two and James Herbertson in the sulky should prove a winning formula for Bay Of Biscay ($1.90 fav).

In the two-year-old colts and geldings' final, the Damien Burns-prepared Hesitate ($2.90 fav) heads the market in the face of an Emma Stewart six-strong assault on the race.

The son of Sportswriter has recaptured his early season form, completing back-to-back wins at Melton in taking out last week’s heat.

Stewart and Herbertson team up in the two-year-old fillies' final with impressive heat winner Let Her Roll ($1.12 fav), whose main danger appears to be the NSW-trained Sugar Honey Pie who finished fourth in the same race after racing outside the leader.

In the trotting division finals, Nathan Jack is expected to pilot the Glenn Hunter-trained Gatesys Gem to victory in the two-year-old fillies' showdown and his squaregaiter Violet Standford home in the three-year-old fillies' encounter.

Commodus (Jayne Davies) and Enchauffour (Jess Tubbs) look likely to fight out the two-year-old boys' clash, while Mister Blindside (Geoff Webster) and Valtino (Blake Fitzpatrick) head the market for the three-year-old colts and geldings' race.