RIGHT now, in purely pragmatic terms, there are few female sportspeople more motivating or meaningful than Kate Gath. 

Sadly, and this shouldn’t be the case, athletic achievements are prioritised by popularity rather than merit. 

WHILE most racing folk revel in their memories and mythologise the past, it’s equally true that punters and participants operate in an almost perpetual state of anxious anticipation for the future. 

Occasionally, as was the case through the Queensland winter carnival, dedicated diehards do, if only for a few fleeting weeks, live majestically in the moment. 

But with that carnival now consigned to history, fandom and focus rapidly recalibrates to target harness racing’s next crowning glory, the Group 1 Pryde's EasiFeed Victoria Cup. 

There’s an adage in racing and sport that definitively declares we learn more about horses and humans in defeat than in victory. 

And few athletes fortify the virtue and veracity of that adage more than veteran pacer King Of Swing. 

Prior to last weekend Luke McCarthy’s wildly well-travelled six-year-old stallion had already staked his claim to superstar status at least. 

THOUGH most folks fail to make a causal connection, the cornerstone of our global passion for sport is that it ruthlessly reveals humans, and horses, for what they really are. 

Despite our desperate desire for comfort and calm, there’s a plaintive part within us which quietly wonders exactly how we’d react under genuine pressure or adversity. 

On Saturday night, across two states, three standardbreds revealed their true colours in captivatingly charismatic fashion.

MORTIFYING as it may sound, racing, as a rule, is driven by addiction. 

Boys and girls – particularly girls – that are raised in racing families of any code have a religious record of following their historical heritage into the great game. 

Somehow, horses and greyhounds, find their way into one’s bloodstream and surreptitiously circulate their influence henceforth. 

Racing itself, however, suffers from its own desperate dependence. 

And that complex compulsion, plainly speaking, is the nattering need to find and deify superstars. 

ONE of racing’s most enduring adages solemnly states, for those with short memories, that form is temporary, and class is permanent. 

Typically, this maxim relates to horses; but it’s true for human too. 

And on Saturday night at Albion Park, Mark Purdon, arguably the greatest harness horseman in Australasian history, dramatically reminded all and sundry of his peerless class. 

WE’VE all heard some derivation of that joke where an Irishman, a Kiwi, and a Tasmanian walk into a bar. 

But what about the Kiwi horse with an Irish name and Tasmanian owners? 

That’s the background boasted by Victoria’s latest rising star, Jimmy The Irishman. 

FOR the last seven weeks, Harness Racing Victoria has produced a brand-new digital offering aptly branded Burning Questions. 

Via this platform participants join experts to try and solve seminal punting problems plaguing the weekend’s metropolitan programme. 

Typically, a quartet of such queries will require resolution. 

Tonight, at Bendigo’s first Saturday meeting since their Cup card, you could triple that number and still be none the wiser. 

IF you let it, life can cultivate wonderful, unexpected realities which were never part of one’s pre-destined plans. 

Just ask Andy Gath. 

Bred for brilliance and gargantuanly gifted, Gath has been one of Australian Harness Racing’s most recognised and resilient trainers for more than two decades. 

NO cosmic construct has preoccupied the mind of man or perplexed his sometimes limited understanding more than that of time.

Philosophers have pondered its role in our lives, Einstein uncovered we can theoretically travel ‘through’ it and, most pertinently for this piece, racing form analysts have debated its veracity and value. 

For some form students’ time means everything, for others it means nothing; the data demons live for it, the traditionalist trusts his eye over a stopwatch every day of the week. 

WITH the advent of a re-structured racing season June is now the new October, or for thoroughbred fans, the new August. 

Every year, punters are plunged into a particularly perplexing period where emerging stars with picket fence formlines are pitted against returning guns with talent rather than fitness on their side. 

And tomorrow night’s nine-race card at Tabcorp Park Melton provides a perfect manifestation of its obstacles.

DESPITE our growing dependence upon data to quantify individual achievement across myriad sporting landscapes, nobody has found the formula for what quintessentially qualifies a champion. 

Among the criteria are longevity at the elite level, dominance over a particular period, excellence in overcoming adversity, capacity to perform on the big stage and some degree of indefinable genius. 

Very few are worthy of the title; Chris Alford is one of them. 

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? 

THOSE with a peripheral or prejudiced view of harness racing often scoff at portrayals of its egalitarian honour code. 

They watch the wilful wars staged on SKY Racing or Trots Vision and refuse to reconcile the brutality of those battles with the fraternal image harness racing holds so dear. 

On Sunday afternoon Toolern Vale trainer Gary Hoban lost his battle with blood cancer. 

IT sounds a convoluted comparison but no two ‘products’ have taken more paradoxical paths in recent weeks than harness racing’s regional model and the odd commodity we call cryptocurrency.  

Since late last month the fortunes of Bitcoin and its many marginal derivatives have plummeted. 

And in the same period, Australia’s pandemic-inspired regional racing model has definitively proven its worth. 

MOST film buffs will recall the 1945 Hitchcock classic Spellbound which regaled the story of a man who wasn’t what he originally seemed. 

Fast forward 66 years and there’s a mare of the same name; and she too may be lulling us into a false sense of security. 

First up for Nathan Purdon, son of the legendary Mark, Spellbound set tongues wagging with an amazingly arrogant triumph, ending the unbeaten sprint record of Tangoingwithsierra in the process. 

WITHOUT doubt, Victorian harness racing’s greatest strength right now is its depth of participant talent.

On Saturday night at Melton 10 races were staged and the spoils from those contests were shared between 10 different trainers and nine different drivers. 

And that kind of spread is no aberration. 

Anecdotally, the lure of Victoria’s trotting scene seems clear. 

More tracks, more races and a greater diversity of classes makes it infinitely easier to properly place one’s horses. 

WHEN those that work in racing reveal their profession to outsiders, those not consumed by the industry commonly query just how busy things are "at the moment". 

For the average Uber driver, barperson and barber, racing lives large during the Spring Carnival and quietly recedes for the remainder of the year. 

Those within the bubble know nothing could be further from the truth.