Such was the magnitude of Saturday night’s calendar-closing program at Melton a certain brand of creativity is required to recognise each of this term’s 12 Vicbred Super Series success stories. 

As a result, this column will act as something of a written awards night. 

Never in Australasian harness racing’s rich and storied history have fans been forced to switch and swivel their attentions more than in the past three maniacal months.

Harness racing, like no other code and few other sports, sacredly celebrates the beauty of brilliant, burgeoning talent. 

Yes, the thoroughbreds have races like the Golden Slipper and a slew of various Derbies in this part of the world, while the Yanks place extraordinary value on their Triple Crown and the Europeans also deify their three-year-old stars. 

UNSPURPRISINGLY, William Shakespeare likely said it best. 

In one of his poems, the Bard opined that youth is full of sport, age’s breath is short: youth is nimble, age is lame; youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold; youth is wild, and age is tame. 

Not since the goldrush roughly 170 years back have Victoria’s natural resources been pillaged and plundered with the kind of ruthless efficiency now being employed by star trainer Jason Grimson.

Despite the forces which persistently, perpetually seek to sanitize sport and reshape its rituals, some things – thankfully – will never, ever change.

Sporting zealots, by their very nature, thrive most thoroughly on what might appear wildly different, deliciously dichotomous situations.

No sporting pursuit relies on powers of recovery quite like the Inter Dominion series. 

Tonight, the second round of qualifiers for this year’s ID will be staged at Shepparton without the dust yet truly settling on round one preliminaries on Saturday night in Ballarat.

Consider, for a moment, the tactical posturing and strategic acrobatics you’ve witnessed in the lead-up to this year’s Victorian state election.

Now, if possible, multiply those Machiavellian manoeuvres by an exponent of 50.

Then, perhaps, you’ll have some comprehension of what transpires through the course of a SENTrack Inter Dominion series. 

Despite the obvious advantages associated with staging Victoria’s feature futurity series in warmer weather, there’s still something unsettling about the TAB Breeders Crown occupying the space it now does.

They say, at least L P Hartley said, that the past is a foreign country; and never has this aphorism held more truth than with the Breeders Crown. 

When Harness Racing Victoria vowed to own late spring and early summer following the sport's pandemic-inspired calendar recalibration, most trotting zealots celebrated the concept.

American businessman and politician, Charles Erwin Wilson, expanding on a previous quote by Charles F Kettering, once opined that “the price of progress is trouble, and I must be making a lot of progress”.

At their core, are humans driven by nature or nurture?

In racing, particularly through recent decades, there’s been a comparable conundrum at play.

Does the industry, or in this case, do the triumvirate of racing industries rely more on quantity or quality.

Scientifically speaking, there’s no evidence to suggest that horses have the faculties required to read social media commentary or consume marketing material of any kind.

Creating comparisons between standardbred superstars and their thoroughbred cousins has always made perfect marketing sense.

Never before has one race represented the global revolution gripping Australian squaregaiting quite like Saturday night's Group 1 Catanach's Jewellers Victoria Trotters Oaks at Tabcorp Park Melton.

Staggeringly, 11 of the 12 fillies engaged to contest this evening's feature are the product of American or European sires.

After March’s Miracle Mile, when King Of Swing left his horseshoes on track at Menangle for the final time and Lochinvar Art was recovering from an abbreviated summer prep, harness racing was in a purgatory of sorts.

EVERYTHING about the freakish four-time Group 1 meeting at Tabcorp Park Melton on Saturday night is utterly amazing. 

First, there’s the extraordinary depth of quality events.