There is a $30, 000 purse up for grabs in Friday night’s Australian harness racing feature at Bendigo, the Warehouse Sales Central Victorian Pacing Championship Final. As a result of good prize money and plenty of horses ready to run, there is an attractive looking field of 13 due to assemble.

Looking at the harness racing results, Matthew Craven’s Viareggio has got form from stand starts and comes into this race with every chance from what looks a good draw. If he can use his experience to good effect, his recent times suggest he won’t be far away. He looks a major frame contender.

There are a couple of quite unexposed runners in this field and one of them is Arber, a horse who has won five of his nine career starts to date and looks an improver. He will have to be, however, as his history shows he is yet to clock a sub-two minute mile. He needs to take another step up the ladder to win this, although it is far from impossible. He handles the start also.

Washies Chance has had just three lifetime starts and has done very little wrong. Improvement no doubt again is needed and it is interesting that connections have pitched him in here for a very valuable contest so early in his career. Maybe they believe he is good enough, which is clearly a positive sign.

Sir Clive has made hay since starting his career back in October and so far hasn’t been out of the first two. He is getting better and is another who, if maintaining his decent level of form, can play a part in the finish.

On the second line, Bitobliss is an interesting contender. This individual has had just the one ‘stand start’ race and that was last time where he didn’t do too badly. He will need to build on that from a difficult handicap draw, but is a solid performer and could be a deep closer.

This is a very wide open race with so many chances and so many unexposed horses who could be anything in the line-up. We’ll side with Washies Chance as it is unlikely that the horse's well-known and respected connections would not pitch their youngster in at the deep end if they felt he would not be up to the task.