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Co-trainer Luke Price knows Victory Lane ($19 on TAB) will have nowhere to hide in the opening heat of the Polytrack Provincial-Midway Championships but believes his talented campaigner will be up for the challenge on home turf at Kembla Grange.

The opening heat of the Provincial-Midway Championships will feature the current $3.50 TAB favourite for the $1m Final, the Edward Cummings-trained Strait Acer (who is $2.10 favourite today).

Victory Lane (Brock Ryan) in winning form at Kembla Grange. Image by Bradley Photographers

The $150,000 qualifier has been a target race for Victory Lane since last year when the gelding was a strong winner in Midway company on The Gong day at Kembla Grange.

"It’s come up a strong race but anyway, you’ve got to beat them at some point," Price said.

“The winner could easily come out of this race and win the Final with Brad and Ed’s horses looking the ones to beat.

“But it’s our home track, we’ve got the right barrier and he performs well first-up.

“He had that time off so we’re going in there confident and all is well.

Victory Lane has won three of his 15 starts with two of those successes coming in city grade.

The Prices gave the smart son of Invader a trial at the beginning of the month and have given Victory Lane a jumpout since to keep him ticking over ahead of his most important test to date.

“He’s good, he’s really good," Price said. “He got beaten a long way in that trial but we had the tracker on and the sectionals were really quick.

“He had another private jump out and I get every impression the horse looks fantastic and is going fantastic."

The Prices are planning to target this year's Provincial-Midway Championships with multiple horses but Victory Lane is their top seed.

“He’s our number one candidate," Price said. "The others are just rough hopes that might go around in the Hawkesbury heat and the Wyong heat but they’ve got to perform at their next start to do so.

“Without doubt he’s got upside, he’s got improvement in him and is no doubt the right horse for the race.”

Victory Lane has Brock Ryan aboard and is one of three locally trained contenders to line up in the qualifier.

Paul Niceforo has the untapped galloper Territory Express ($6) while Ben Smith's Outakandy ($51) will get his chance in the feature. The race has been cut up due to the expected 34 degree heat with eight scratchings.

View final fields with full form & race replays for Kembla Grange here