Eureka favourites take next step on path to showdown
The Victorian-trained pair head the betting – at $3.50 and $5 respectively – for the $2.1 million TAB Eureka, which is just five weeks away at Menangle on September 6.
Bay Of Biscay was nominated to race at Melton and Menangle, but co-trainer Emma Stewart confirmed the Chariots Of Fire winner would head interstate for the Sydney race.
The prospect of a 2300m race at Menangle – the same track and distance as the TAB Eureka – was more attractive than a 1720m sprint with less prize money at Melton.
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Bay Of Biscay, who flashed home for a luckless second to subsequent Miracle Mile and Inter Dominion winner Don Hugo in last year's TAB Eureka, will become the first pacer to tackle the race twice.
The TAB Eureka is restricted to three and four-year-old Australian-bred pacers.
Connections have focused everything on this year's TAB Eureka and snared an early slot through WA breeding giant Rob Watson's Soho Standardbreds.
The Bay Of Biscay team even declined an invitation to run in the $1 million Miracle Mile in March, which came after winning the Chariots Of Fire a week earlier.
'If all goes well, we'll have a go at the Miracle Mile next year, but we want to win the TAB Eureka first,' managing owner Tim Bunning said at the time.
Bay Of Biscay, who boasts 11 wins and seven seconds from just 22 starts, has only raced once since his Chariots Of Fire win on March 1. That was for a narrow win, albeit in slick time, at Melton on June 28.
He was set for the $350,000 Group 1 Rising Sun at Albion Park earlier this month, but plans were aborted when a suitable flight could not be arranged.
Top young driver Cam Hart, who has been aboard for Bay Of Biscay's past three runs and is locked in for the TAB Eureka, will take the reins again this week.
Fighter Command will head in a different direction for the $80,000 Beautide in Hobart on Saturday night.
The Jess Tubbs-trained four-year-old won the Beautide last year, which carries with it a golden ticket into the TAB Eureka through the Tasracing slot.
Tubbs described the race as the 'first step towards redemption' after Fighter Command almost died after he was struck down with a twisted bowel and scratched just days out from last year's TAB Eureka.
'We've slowly and steadily built him back-up again and with everything focused on this race (the Beautide),' Tubbs said.
'After what happened last year, we haven't looked beyond this week, but hopefully he wins and we can.
'Herbie (Australia's premier driver James Herbertson) is locked in for Hobart, so we're set to go.'
Fighter Command wins last year's Beautide. Picture: Eliza Howlett
Fighter Command had almost six months away from the track after the twisted bowel, but he returned with eight starts for two wins, a second, a third and two fourths.
So far only Bay Of Biscay (Soho Standardbreds) and Hesitate (John Singleton), are confirmed runners in the TAB Eureka.
• Adam Hamilton is a paid contributor writing on harness racing for News Corp.
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