It was like we had all gone back in time at Alexandra Park on Friday night.

Back to the days when there was no Covid so crowds could come to the track, when Aussies popped across the Tasman on the day of the races and when Spankem was leading and winning the Taylor Mile.

And now with the months ahead hopefully looking far more like 2019 than the Groundhog Day of the last two years, driver Natalie Rasmussen says there is no reason Spankem can’t return to Australia and take up where he left off.

Young driver Ben Hope says he is ready to lay down the gauntlet to Sundees Son at Alexandra Park tonight.

Hope will partner Muscle Mountain, trained by his parents Greg and Nina, when he makes his Alexandra Park debut in the Steward’s Mile Trot tonight with the advantage of drawing inside the undisputed champ of Australasian trotting in Sundees Son.

After a dazzling inaugural running of New Zealand’s first slot race the host club is eyeing adding another next season, this time for trotters.

And the Waikato-Bay Of Plenty Harness Racing Club has the overwhelming support of trainers as it contemplates what could quickly become one of the most highly anticipated harness racing meetings of the year.

Champion trainer Mark Purdon thinks he has solved the problem that has robbed Self Assured of champion status in time for tonight’s $900,000 The Race at Cambridge.

The best pacer in the new slot race has got the worst draw but the greatest trainer, making for some interesting mental calculations for punters wanting to back him.

Champion New Zealand horseman Tony Herlihy admits he has no idea which version of Bolt For Brilliance will turn up in the seconds before the start of tonight’s $100,000 Group 1 trot at Addington.

And that mystery could be the key to the race.

Bolt For Brillance and trotting’s other heir apparent, Muscle Mountain, get another crack at the king Sundees Son in the NZ Trotting Championships and, even though Sundees Son became a millionaire two starts ago, he shows little interest in abdicating his throne.

Sundees Son's only real Achilles' heel could be targeted by his own stablemate Mataderos at Addington tonight.

Driver John Dunn admits he doesn’t know whether the new millionaire of trotting can justify his hot favouritism in the $30,000 Lamb And Hayward Trotters Classic, the next chapter in what is shaping as a vintage autumn of trotting.

Cambridge will upsize the first ever running of The Race after the NZ Government's relaxation of crowd restrictions.

That will see the April 14 slot race meeting fully open to the public and New Zealand’s biggest race meeting since the Karaka Million in January.

John Dunn wants his old mate Sundees Son to enter the millionaire’s club in style.

So while tonight’s $20,000 Woodlands Stud Free-For-All at Addington is only the start point of a huge autumn campaign, Dunn would love to win to stamp the historic occasion.

Sundees Son goes into tonight’s 2600m standing start on $999,667 in career stakes so will join the elite millionaire’s club regardless, a remarkable achievement considering he has never raced in Australia.

The great female mane drain to Australia continues as two of New Zealand's elite pacing mares head there.

Breeders Stakes quinella mates Bettor Talk Art and Need You Now are both set to head off shore, one permanently and the other to finish her racing career.

After the fun of sales week it is back to work for trainer Steve Telfer at Alexandra Park tonight.

Not that that won’t be fun too as he gets to unleash five of the beautifully-bred fillies he was handed to train last year.

Telfer and his sister Amanda are the trainers for South Auckland racing and breeding operation Stonewall Stud, whose already enormous involvement in the harness racing industry went to a completely different level this week.

Of all the strange things than happened at Karaka on Sunday the strangest was also the most important.

And that was the final result of a remarkable sale that defied all obstacles to produce a record average nobody could have predicted.

The $100,000 Breeders Stakes at Addington tonight may not come down to whether Bettor Twist is the best horse in the race. It may come down to whether she can get to the lead then prove it.

The Group 1 2600m mobile brings together a plethora of speedster mares like Belle Of Montana, Need You Now, Allamericanlover and, to be honest, just about every other mare in the race against the equine sledgehammer that is Bettor Twist.

One of the golden rules of broadcasting is to not make yourself the story, but that may be impossible when TrotsVision goes to the next level with the help of Victorian thoroughbred friend Racing.com this Saturday night.

While the winner of the Del-Re National A.G. Hunter Cup will earn their place in history, the new relationship inked between Harness Racing Victoria (HRV) and Racing.com could be just as important for the sport in years to come.

The highlight of tonight’s epic Breeders Crown meeting at Melton won’t just be another chapter in the iconic harness series.

It could develop into a full-blown Shakespearean drama.

Such are the tantalising twists and turns scripted for the $200,000 three-year-old fillies’ final, it’s a rare occasion when the princesses of pacing will hold centre stage over the leading men of the code.

If this was any normal filly crop, the tale of greatness would already be written, with any one of Ladies In Red, Bettor Twist or Beach Music lauded a freak of their era.

For decades the Inter Dominion was the race everybody wanted to win.

Now it has become the series everybody wants to criticise.

That is the conundrum facing Harness Racing New South Wales as they prepare to hold the 2021 series (God willing), which was postponed last year because of COVID-19.

If you are reading this I am sure you know this year’s series is set to be opened at Menangle late November before heading to Bathurst and then Newcastle, with four-day gaps and return to headquarters for the final six days later.

For the man thrust into NZ harness racing’s hottest seat, his second homecoming at Cambridge on Sunday simply has to go better than the first.

In fact, it should go a lot, lot better for Hayden Cullen.

Cullen trains four of the hot favourites at the IRT Jewels meeting, where nine $100,000 Group 1 races will be decided.

We need to talk. Not actually you and me, particularly me, because if you are reading this you almost certainly know I talk enough. Probably too much. But maybe if you are in the harness racing business you should start talking too.

I have harped on about this before and I am doing so again because the problem is getting bigger, the gap larger, something I had hammered home to me over the weekend.