THE Harness Jewels certainly lived up to some high expectations in my book last weekend! 

Whilst the weather wasn’t perfect, it certainly didn’t dampen what was an extremely entertaining day of racing. Even the best cards generally have a race or two that may not live up to extreme levels of excitement, however, that could not be said for Cambridge’s meeting. 

Star after star rolled on to the 1000-metre circuit in search of Group 1 success and, although the prizemoney may have been on a decline from prior years, very few big names were absent.  

IN recent years, the validity and veracity of eye-witness testimony when leveraged in legal proceedings has been widely scrutinised and sometimes discredit entirely. 

And anyone that witnessed the fourth event at Melton Saturday night will now recognize why. 

Where do we start here? 

Adam Hamilton's latest column takes a look at the massive Group 1 meeting from Cambridge in New Zealand, the hotly-debated protest from Tabcorp Park Melton on Saturday night and Spankem's disappointing return to Australia.

For the man thrust into NZ harness racing’s hottest seat, his second homecoming at Cambridge on Sunday simply has to go better than the first.

In fact, it should go a lot, lot better for Hayden Cullen.

Cullen trains four of the hot favourites at the IRT Jewels meeting, where nine $100,000 Group 1 races will be decided.

Winning major races comes via hard work, collaboration and everyone playing their role to a tee.

A horse needs to have some god given ability thanks to it’s breeding - or the odd freak of nature who defies all the breeding buffs - a trainer is tasked with giving the horse the very best care and therefore the very best chance come race day and the driver’s job is to make split-second decisions to give the horse every chance of victory.

Each role is crucial and none any less important than the next.

Mick Stanely's Burrumbeet team appears to be ticking along nicely, with two of his runners topping sectionals charts last week.

The first of those was the talented Drain The Swamp, who backed up his dominant win at Geelong with an eye-catching third in the Signature Clean 4 You 3YO Vicbred Pace at Ballarat.

Eleven breeders have co-authored the following to Harness Racing Australia, in regards to its April 16 announcement titled 'Proposed Stallion Levy to Fund $2m Additional Prizemoney'.

The letter's being published here in thetrots.com.au's new space, The Forum, which is designed to encourage conversation in the sport.