Emma Stewart struggling to find drivers for her mammoth team with Vicbred semi-finals clashing with TAB Eureka

Emma Stewart faces an “absolute nightmare” finding drivers for her extraordinary number of runners at Melton and Menangle on Saturday night.

Emma Stewart has 38 runners across the 12 Vicbred semi-finals at Melton. Picture: Club Menangle

Training horses is the easy part for Emma Stewart this week, but finding drivers for them all is a huge challenge.

Stewart and Clayton Tonkin have a remarkable 38 runners across the 12 Vicbred semi-finals at Melton on Saturday night.

But things get a lot trickier when you throw in the five runners – including three in the $2.1m TAB Eureka – at Menangle on the same night.

“You can’t believe the meetings are clashing, can you?” she said.

“It’s an absolute nightmare for us.

“We’ve sorted the Menangle drivers, but don’t even ask me where we start when it comes to Melton. We’ve got five or six starters in some of those semi-finals.”

The matrix means Stewart and Tonkin will have to use at least nine different drivers across their runners on Saturday night.

What’s confirmed is that Kerryn Manning will go to Menangle to drive High Above in the TAB Eureka.

The stablemates, Major Delight (Ashleigh Delosa) and Bay Of Biscay (Cam Hart) – will have local NSW drivers.

The clash of meetings means Stewart and Tonkin’s stable driver, Mark Pitt, will stay in Victoria and take the best of the drives at Melton.

“What makes it worse is the fact we’d normally use drivers like Greg (Sugars) and Kate (Gath), but they’ll both be at Menangle with their own horses,” Stewart said.

Sugars has Better Eclipse in the $150,000 Group 1 Len Smith Mile, while Gath will be aboard Catch A Wave in the same race.

The biggest headache will come in Melton’s fourth race, a very strong first semi-final of the Vicbred 2YO colts and geldings series, where Stewart and Tonkin train half the field (six of the 12 runners).

Emma Stewart shows off her Encipher tattoo after winning The Eureka last year. Picture: Emma Stewart

Pitt will almost certainly drive Australia’s top-rated juvenile The Highlight Reel (gate 12), but that leaves drivers to be found for Silver Pistol (one), Always Hot (two), I Am The Storm (four), Storms Collide (nine) and Arsenio (11).

Then there are the logistics of who goes where on Saturday night from a training perspective.

“It’s such a big night, we need one at each meeting. I’ll go to Menangle and Clayton will do Melton,” Stewart said.

“It’s a shame we can’t be at Menangle together because winning the (inaugural) TAB Eureka last year with Encipher was one of the biggest thrills we’ve had in the game.”

Stewart had Encipher’s name tattooed on her arm after winning the world’s richest harness race last year.

“We’ve got the three runners this year and it doesn’t look quite as strong as last year. I think they’ve all got winning chances,” she said.

“Major Delight is our most favoured runner in the markets, but I’m not sure she’s our best hope.

“Bay Of Biscay will be written-off by a lot of people because he’s the only three-year-old in it, but he’s had a great preparation, looks really good and will get a terrific run from his draw (gate one).

“And look out for High Above if it’s a truly run race and the speed is on. He’ll be very dangerous if he gets the last shot at them.”

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

Originally published as Emma Stewart struggling to find drivers for her mammoth team with Vicbred semi-finals clashing with TAB Eureka