Saturday night at Tabcorp Park Melton was freezing cold and eerily quiet with a wind factor falling slightly short of cyclone status and intermittent passages of precipitation.

These were not fertile conditions for freakish performances.

This was also not the time of year you’d expect to have your mind blown.

Yet blown our minds were - to smithereens - and not just once but twice.

First, there was Queen Elida.

On one hand, there was nothing surprising about Queen Elida’s success in the Group 3 Carlotta’s Pride Trotters Free For All.

In her two previous runs this campaign, Brent Lilley’s four-year-old daughter of Love You has looked every bit a future freak and seemed to have strong yet inferior rivals covered despite her gate seven draw.

Despite this fact, when the mare rated her chief adversary, Aldebaran Crescent, rolled to the front with Queen Elida settling last, even the favourite’s most ardent supporters would have had their doubts.

And it’s almost certain those doubts doubled down when Josh Aiken launched for home on Aldebaran Crescent half-way down Melton’s back straight.

Staggeringly, however, Queen Elida not only scaled the mountain required to win Saturday night’s feature event, but she did so with almost inconceivable arrogance and speed.

Wild as it was, that win was at very least expected.

The second of Saturday night’s goosebump moments was not.

By the time horses jogged toward the mobile gate for Melton’s fast-class pace, Triple Eight, undefeated this preparation, had been backed from $1.65 to $1.22 on TAB fixed odds.

Then, as the script suggested, Greg Sugars effortlessly found the front with that white-hot favourite and most punters ducked away to make their cups of tea.

Just as the kettle boiled, however, something extraordinary happened.

First-up from a break, gifted speedster Like A Wildfire sat parked outside Triple Eight and metaphorically ate him alive with a 700m sprint as mindboggling as anything we’ve seen in many years.

When it comes to Queen Elida, the news is only good. We thought she was something wildly special and now we know she is.

The fallout from Saturday night’s Italian Cup is slightly tougher to discern.

Is Like A Wildfire set for superstardom in the twilight of his career or was Triple Eight disappointing?

Or was it both?

The weather may have been typical of winter over the weekend, but the racing was white hot.

And the questions that racing has raised will burn between now and when these horses next compete.

In many ways, without meaning to, we often take the outrageous gifts of Chris Alford for granted.

And that’s largely because the winningest driver in Australasian history simply keeps winning.

Leading athletes in most sports retire before their fourth decade and we deify their deeds henceforth.

Alford just keeps going; and he did just that on Saturday night at Melton with yet another treble behind American Legacy, Queen Elida and Sicario.

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.