Ryan Duffy continues on winning way while boss Michael Stanley campaigns in Sydney

Ballarat’s MICHAEL STANLEY is taking on one of the biggest challenges of his training career – endeavouring to get SOHO TRIBECA into the $750,000 Miracle Mile at Menangle on Saturday, February 24.

Earning a spot in the time honoured event is arguably one of the toughest assignments in harness racing, such is the elite nature of the field.

Stanley has had Soho Tribeca for just the one start since he arrived from Western Australia for a second to Lazarus in the AG Hunter Cup.

Outside the freakish Lazarus, no one else is racing better than Soho Tribeca, which two starts ago took out the WA Pacing Cup.

Soho Tribeca is one of three starters Stanley has at Menangle on Saturday, February 17.

Stanley, who is a regular visitor to Sydney, has Soho Tribeca in the group 1 $100,000 ALLIED EXPRESS TRANSPORT SPRINT, 1609m; and SOHO BURNING and MACEY JAYDE in $20,000 NSW OAKS heats.

A top two finish will guarantee Soho Tribeca a Miracle Mile start.

While Stanley has three big assignments at Menangle, these are not his only interstate engagements on Saturday night.

He also has JEDI MIND in the $15,000 Albury Cup, with stable driver Ryan Duffy (pictured) taking the reins.

Duffy has become an integral member of the Stanley team since joining the Burrumbeet stable this season.

A member of one of Shepparton’s best known standardbred and thoroughbred racing families, Duffy made the move to Ballarat to improve his opportunities after taking up the sport full-time after completing a cabinet-making apprenticeship last year.

The opportunity came after a chance chat with Stanley at Cobram.

The shift could hardly have worked out better, with Duffy comfortably in the top 10 in the Victorian concessions drivers’ premiership with 25 wins at a strike rate of almost 25 per cent.

He will certainly have already earned some credits while Stanley is in Sydney by winning on the stable’s BONCEL BENJAMIN ($2.80 favourite) – a gelding raced by his mother Julie Duffy – in the ALABAR 3YO PACE at Melton on Friday, February 16.

That success came a day after Duffy had his first win on his newly adopted home track in Ballarat with the John HcHugh-trained JUST CALL ME MAC.