One horse who won't be eligible for the riches that night is Tellall, the Australian-bred and sold gelding instead being set on a path for the Auckland Guineas on New Year's Day.
"He is a total pro," says Pike. "He jumps and puts himself in the race and that makes him very hard to beat. He is very progressive."
That is exactly what Tellall did in yesterday's $50,000 race, staying handy and cruising clear at the top of the straight to easily hold out fillies Helsinki and Fleetwood Maca, both of whom earned valuable black-type with their placings.
Tellall races in the same colours as Pike's former Vodafone Derby winner Rangipo and the pair's pathways are similar.
"They are both horses who put themselves in their races and are hard to run down."
Rangipo was also owned by John Thompson and started a feature-race winning rampage in the Auckland (then Great Northern Guineas) in 2016 that also saw him snare the Waikato and Avondale Guineas and then the Derby.
In between those, he ran third in the Levin Classic, and Pike will aim Tellall at a couple of those features before he decides on whether the Derby is an option.
"He can go to the Guineas here, and by then, he might have told us whether he is a miler, in which case we can go to Trentham [Levin Classic] or stay here and go down the Derby path," says last season's Derby-winning trainer.
Pike suggests punters keep an eye on the team in coming weeks as he has plenty of firepower to unleash.
Tellall's win was also a triumph for rider Michael McNab, who also rode Gino Severini to win the $70,000 Group 3 Eagle Technology Stakes.
Gino Severini grabbed pacemaker The Mitigator in the last 50m to score his first win since January.
McNab spent a large chunk of time away from the saddle in the middle of the year when he suffered hip and sometimes motivation troubles.
But he has looked dialled in in recent weeks and will be well sought after in the slightly depleted northern jockey ranks if he retains his level of focus.
