FOR those hooked on harness racing by the seductive heroics of horses like Pure Steel and Popular Alm there’s an understandable passion for the sport to suddenly wind back the clock. 

Sadly, for them at least, that simply cannot happen. Time's, both literally and metaphorically, have changed. 

Nothing is what it was, and one example of that fact is how post-modern standardbreds perform fresh from breaks. 

Once, great horses could overcome fitness deficits with talent coming back from spells. 

Now, particularly at metropolitan level, hard racing is almost always required to compete with, and conquer, quality rivals. 

Which is why Honolua Bay’s breathtaking Catanach's Jewellers 4YO and 5YO Championship triumph on Saturday night was so staggering in nature. 

The scene was set for something special last weekend. 

After all, this was the first metropolitan meeting back at Melton following Victoria’s sixth – and hopefully final - pandemic lockdown. 

But this was something else. 

Now trained by Emma Stewart having previously campaigned with another legendary trainer in David Aiken, Honolua Bay has always promised the world. 

Despite this fact, he’s also flopped badly at some of his short career’s most critical junctures. 

First up from five months off the scene tackling Pryde's EasiFeed Victoria Cup king Max Delight and wildly boomed Community Bank Maryborough Gold Cup champ Wille Go West among others, Honolua Bay could have finished somewhere in the top five and still been deemed contextually successful Saturday night. 

Instead, he led, found his rhythm and ultimately exploded through the most devastating 1200m of sustained speed one could possibly imagine. 

Sectional times are often slightly misleading in nature; these sectional times were not. 

After raising the tempo just before the Group 2 filed entered their final circuit, Honolua Bay recorded quarterly splits of 27.6secs, 27.3secs and 27.6secs on his way to success. 

For those with little concept of what that means, it’s simply insane. 

So fast was the final 1200m of Saturday’s night’s co-feature that the overall mile-rate was just 0.4secs slower than the recently staged Victoria Cup at Bendigo. 

Now we’ve seen this from Honolua Bay, we can’t unsee it. 

As a result, expectations will skyrocket, and pressure will build. 

But based on this success he’s more than ready to take his place among Australasia’s pacing elite. 

WHEN you’re a three-time Grand Circuit champion, it’s crazy to think that proving yourself should remain an issue. 

Yet this was the situation superstar mare Amazing Dream found herself facing as the mobile rolled for Saturday night’s Group 1 Benstud Queen of the Pacific at Tabcorp Park. 

Despite her extraordinary resume, Nathan Purdon’s Auckland Cup queen has a mind-bogglingly meagre record in races against her own gender. 

She went a long way to rectifying that aberration with last weekend’s all-the-way triumph. 

And Purdon, who carries the enormous burden of his freakishly famous surname, also landed the Group 1 quinella with Spellbound finishing second. 

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.