Two of the most exciting young horses in the country provide punters a difficult puzzle to solve in the feature races at Alexandra Park tonight.
If Copy That (R8, No4) and Bolt For Brilliance (R9, No3) have the manners to match their motors tonight, they will be too fast fortheir older, better-credentialled rivals.
Copy That was so stunning last start, beating all the rivals he faces in tonight's main pace, it is impossible to tip against him, especially if he happened to secure his favoured pacemaking role again.
Trainer Ray Green is confident Copy That will handle the standing start but even a smooth but slow beginning could see him settle behind key rivals such as Belle Of Montana, Triple Eight or Mach Shard, who would be reluctant to let him have his own way.
Bolt For Brilliance is a former Jewels winner in a vintage crop of now four-year-old trotters and the way he peeled off a 27-second last 400m when winning at the Pukekohe workouts last Friday suggests the best-behaved version of him wins tonight in Auckland.
His champion trainer-driver Tony Herlihy expects him to be dialled in to the standing start but admits it is not always that simple, especially fresh up.
"I think he will be fine because he has been stepping well at the workouts," said Herlihy.
"But there are some good race-hardened horses in there who won't make it easy."
Two of those of horses Herlihy knows well. Herlihy trains race rival Kenny's Dream while used to train Rowe Cup winner Temporale, who now resides with Michelle Wallis and Bernie Hackett for beach training.
"I drove Temporale at the workouts two weeks ago and he is really well but if they all step off the mark and race well it would be very hard to see him giving Bolt For Brilliance a 40m start over 2200m."
