The defining feature of futurity series like the Vicbred, which was staged at Melton Park on Saturday night, is that they fortify hope in the future.
There’s certainly an argument, a powerful argument, that the preponderance of prizemoney funnelled toward age-restricted racing warps our priorities in fundamental ways.
Indeed, it often feels like the "college" version of racing has superseded its "NBA" equivalent.
On the flipside, however, massive Group 1 programmes like the Super Series and Breeders Crown also serve to whet our appetites for what may lie ahead.
Essentially, the Vicbred serves two purposes.
Firstly, it harbours self-containing highlights and glories, almost every participant in Victoria dreams of Super Series success.
Secondly, the Vicbred serves as a star-making series of the highest order.
The thing is, however, some VSS winners are already stars.
That much is certainly true for freakishly gifted four-year-old mare, Amore Vita, who became just the second standardbred of her gender to prevail in three consecutive Vicbred finals last weekend.
Staggering as it sounds, Amore Vita’s recent heroics, along with her phenomenal previous feats, are seeing her compared, often favourably, with her four-year-old female contemporary and stablemate, Encipher.
On one hand, these comparisons seem patently patronising to Encipher, who beat the boys on their merits in the recently staged Eureka, now rated as the world’s single-richest pacing contest.
Prior to that, Encipher had also humbled her male contemporaries at open class level in the Westburn Grant Free For All.
Gifted as she is, Amore Vita is yet to achieve similar feats.
On the other hand, Amore Vita did sit outside Encipher and beat her in last year’s Breeders Crown at their most recent clash.
Regardless of whose corner you’re in, the next meeting between Emma Stewart’s magnificent mares must represent an enormous promotional opportunity for harness racing in Victoria and beyond.
Hopefully, that battle will materialise in the Breeders Crown, and beyond that the prospect of both mares tackling the males at Grand Circuit level is more mouth-watering again.
We may be on the verge of a new era in southern hemisphere harness racing, and we must exploit it.
In the lead up to this year’s Vicbred Super Series finals, much was made of one stable’s dominance with regard to competing numbers.
In reality, however, the spread of winners from both a training and driving perspective further proved the depth of talent throughout the Victorian trots.
Sure, Emma Stewart still secured a breathtaking five Vicbred successes, but six other trainers – or training teams - also tasted glory.
They being Wayne Potter, Anton Golino, Gary and Debbie Quinlan, Chris Svanosio, Andy Gath and Nathan Jack.
The driving honours were also nicely shared.
Mark Pitt led the way with four successes, followed by Nathan Jack and the Super Series’ most successful reinsman, Chris Alford, with two apiece.
The opinions expressed in The Forum are those of the author and may not be attributed to or represent policies of Harness Racing Victoria, which is the state authority and owner of thetrots.com.au.