Harness racing: Emerging star Fighter Command back from life-threatening issue

Top driver Greg Sugars has plenty to look forward to at Menangle on Saturday night including the return of a promising pacer who nearly lost his life.

Fighter Command will make his comeback in the Paleface Adios Stakes at Menangle on Saturday night. Picture: Stuart McCormick

Life after champion trotter Just Believe was bound to be different for Greg Sugars and Jess Tubbs.

The globetrotting superstar, who won 38 races, almost $2m and competed superbly in three countries and two hemispheres, was retired with some injury issues earlier this year.

You don’t fill the shoes of a great like Just Believe, but you hope to find a horse with enough excitement to replace part of the void.

Sugars and Tubbs have that in untapped four-year-old pacer Fighter Command.

But they almost lost him, too.

Fighter Command turned plenty of heads winning nine of his first 12 starts and burst his way into the world’s richest harness race, the $2.1m TAB Eureka last September.

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Just days before the race, the gelding was rushed in for emergency surgery on a life-threatening twisted intestine.

It was touch and go for a few days.

Now, much to the relief and delight of Sugars and Tubbs, Fighter Command is back, ready to race again.

He hasn’t started since a Melton win on August 31.

“You tread warily for a while when they come back from something like that, but the signs are great,” Sugars said.

“He’s had two (Melton) trials and pleased us in both, but it’s been the last couple of hitouts at home which have shown us he’s as good as before.

“He’s got an X-factor, this horse. What he’s done so far has really been on raw ability. He’s been so raw and gangly.

“The ring craft is something he will develop, but he is right up with the best pacers we’ve trained.”

Jess Tubbs and Greg Sugars' gun three-year-old Fighter Command tuned up for the @eurekarace with a narrow but gutsy win in the Legend Gammalite Pace. pic.twitter.com/DGipSqFiNX

— The Trots (@TheTrotsComAu) August 31, 2024

Those pacers include the multiple Group 1 winner Better Eclipse, who has just returned from a break and is building towards the Brisbane Inter Dominion in July.

Better Eclipse’s breakthrough win came in the 2022 Chariots Of Fire and Fighter Command is headed in that direction, albeit sooner than Sugars would have liked.

“The Chariots has been the aim, but the last of the qualifiers is this week (Saturday night at Menangle) and we’d love to have got a lead-up race into him,” he said.

“We’re really happy where he’s at, but it looks a huge ask now he’s drawn the outside (gate 10). It’s just hard from out there in sprint races at Menangle.

“If he’s drawn well, I’d said he’d be hard to beat, but he’s going to need a lot of luck now.”

Beyond this week, Fighter Command will be aimed at finally getting to the TAB Eureka in September, a year after he was first scheduled to tackle it.

In between, Sugars said a Queensland winter campaign was on the cards.

“There’s some nice races up there for him and we’ll look to take him up there with a few others, like Better Eclipse,” he said.

Before then, Sugars has plenty to look forward to at Menangle along with Fighter Command.

On Saturday night he also teams with champion Kiwi trainer Mark Purdon and his star trotter Oscar Bonavena.

Sugars also drives unbeaten Victorian three-year-old Always Hot, who is pre-post favourite for the Group 1 NSW Derby on March 8 after brilliantly winning a qualifier at Menangle last Saturday week.

• Adam Hamilton is a paid contributor writing on harness racing for News Corp

Originally published as Harness racing: Emerging star Fighter Command back from life-threatening issue