The group 1 event should have been a celebration.

It had all the ingredients of being a great race.

There was hometown trainer Emma Stewart, already the winner of two Ballarat Cups, with an unprecedented four starters.

Then there was the New Zealand champion Terror To Love - fresh from his first triumph on Australian soil in the Cranbourne Pacing Cup.

Would he reinforce his greatness and deny the Stewart quartet?

FULL COVERAGE: Ballarat Pacing Cup chaos.

A big crowd was on hand at Bray Raceway, filled with anticipation and ready to toast a new "heavyweight" title holder to join the cavalcade of stars to have won the race over 45 years.

The Cup was run and won.

Im Corzin Terror won the Ballarat Pacing Cup for Avalon trainer Amanda Grieve and gave champion reinsman Chris Alford his first success in the race.

He beat home raging hot favourite Terror To Love and just two other runners after the field was decimated with six scratchings in one of the most controversial sequence of events in harness racing history in Victoria. And possibly Australia.

It all came about as a result of the on-the-spot banning of a model of the UFO-branded sulky.

Harness Racing Victoria stewards acted on a directive from Harness Racing Australia earlier in the week, which stated a batch of sulkies in question had been modified and were consequently wider than HRA specifications allowed.

It was right that they acted on it.

The response from those affected by the ban at the Ballarat meeting was not so much about the legality of the sulky, but the process which led to the action - a lack of communication.

This became more and more evident as emotions settled and discussion continued on Sunday.

There had been no warning, no opportunity to make other arrangements before getting to the track.

Stewart stated they had only been informed of the crackdown when she arrived on track, about two hours before the Cup.

Harness Racing Victoria chief steward Neal Conder confirmed this in a prepared statement late on Saturday night.

"Trainers were informed tonight that the sulkies were outside HRA regulations because we did not expect to find any outside of the HRA specifications."

The sulky inspections began at the start of the 10-race program, with some trainers switching carts.

However, Stewart and Avenel trainer David Aiken, who scratched two runners from the Cup because of the ruling and like Stewart's other runners on the card, were not prepared to race their horses in unfamiliar sulkies.

HRV chief executive John Anderson was also blind-sided by the lack of communication, not learning of the issue until well after inspections had started, and well after sections of the media had become aware of it and the possible repercussions.

Not a position he would have preferred.

The development certainly did put a dampener on what is the biggest provincial cup in Australia and a jewel in the crown for HRV.

It caused a variety of responses.

Emotions, not surprisingly, were at their highest among connections of the scratched Cup runners.

There was frustration, but more than that. There was anger.

Those closest to the Ballarat and District Trotting Club were stunned that the Cup meeting was a victim of a major controversy of this nature.

Industry participants were also nothing less than shocked.

And racegoers, many of whom are once-a-year trots attendees, did not know what to think.

What they did know is that the race they had come to see had been stripped of its glory and they had been denied the opportunity to see the spectacle they had expected.

Booing from a small sector of the crowd as the Cup field lined up behind the mobile sounded out clearly what some thought.

So what now?

There are many questions which needed to answered.

BDTC chief executive Paul Rowse will enter talks with HRV to review the implications of the events which were completely out of the club's hands.

HRV chairman Ken Latta will ask the racing integrity council to review Saturday night's events to ensure there is not a repeat of the situation.

Latta stated that HRV stewards report directly to the integrity council and it would be up to the integrity council to advise on ways to improve processes around communication between stewards and participants.

It will undoubtedly take several days for the exact sequence of events to come to light, and while due process must occur, time is of the essence.

Right or wrong, the Victorian harness racing brand has taken a major hit.

It has been damaged and there will be fall-out.

And it is not going to go away.

Harness racing must now, at the highest level, get on the front foot and not with what is commonly called "spin".

Something of this nature cannot be allowed to happen again if the industry is to go forward as it needs to.

- David Brehaut is The Courier sports editor and also a Ballarat and District Trotting Club committee member.