Having taken the Australasian pacing world by storm, capturing the New Zealand Cup and Free-For-All along with the Miracle Mile in the space of 19 days, Hill’s gifted son of Sands A Flyin faces his biggest challenge after drawing gate 13 in the $400,000 Group 1.

“It isn’t ideal, but we’ve had a good run and he can still win,” Hill said.

“I always leave the driving tactics up to Ricky (May). He knows the horse better than me when it comes to raceday.

“I think we all know his strength and that’s sitting quiet and coming with one run and I think we’ve got to drive him that way again on Friday and hope for some luck.”

Luck has been on Monkey King’s side in recent weeks and even his doting conditioner would agree that his star’s list of November achievements exceeded any expectations he entertained.

“To be honest, we were only ever aiming for one race and that was the New Zealand Cup,” the Pukekohe horseman said.

“To win the Free-For-All and then get an invite to the Miracle Mile, where things panned out in our favour again, we’ve just had a great run.”

But don’t mistake gratitude for false modesty – Hill always knew his pint-size pacer had it in him.

“These past few runs he’s just confirmed our opinion of him. He’s always had the ability to do this when things go his way and it’s been happening lately, that’s all,” he said.

As the newest superstar of Australasian harness racing, Monkey King’s reputation will rise to stratospheric proportions if he can overcome his many obstacles to claim Victoria’s most revered mobile start event, but for Hill the result is irrelevant.

“No matter what happens on Friday night it doesn’t take away what he’s done,” Hill said. “Not many horses do what he’s done so he’s up there with the very best of them.”

The SEW-Eurodrive Victoria Cup is a star-studded event also featuring defending champion Melpark Major, triple Inter Dominion winner Blacks A Fake and local star Smoken Up and will be run at 9.40pm.