Steve Turnbull's Major Bracken narrowly holds out Alta Billy at Bathurst Paceway

Major Bracken ($4.80, Mitch Turnbull) showed plenty of fight when put under pressure by race favourite Alta Billy ($4.40, Justin Reynolds) to his inside, and held on to win by a half neck.

Exemplary form might be an understatement for Major Bracken, who has now won four of his last five starts for trainer Steve Turnbull and was only two metres away from making that five wins in a row.

Trainer Turnbull said the three-year-old Hes Watching gelding has hardly put a hoof wrong this preparation.

"He's done a great job this prep. His run a couple of weeks ago was enormous too, when he came around from last and hit the lead at the top of the straight and still battled on for second," he said.

"He's been knocking on the door and I haven't been disappointed with any of his runs this time in."

Major Bracken managed to catch a breather in the second quarter of Wednesday night's race but couldn't shake Alta Billy in the sprint lane.

Alta Billy gained ground with every stride but didn't quite have the pace to charge down the front runner, who ran a 1:56.7 mile rate.

Major Bracken is in the perfect sort of form for a Breeders Challenge build up.

As it stands, Bathurst-trained horses won't be eligible for a series held in Sydney so Turnbull is hopeful that regional events will pop up in its place.

"I'm not sure what we'll end up doing with him. Hopefully he'll be able to go in the Breeders Challenge," he said.

"It's not like we're racing for bad money out here though so we'll just keep poking along with him."

Steve Turnbull's other runner in the event, Joes Redemption ($5.50, Amanda Turnbull), was only 2.5 metres away from the leading pair in third.

Major Bracken now moves to an impressive career record of seven wins and three placings from 14 starts, putting him onto a 50 per cent career winning strike rate.

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