While Zac Purton may have put the jockeys' championship to bed with his four-timer, the trainers' title seems to be creeping closer to another gripping conclusion as the congested top end became even tighter with wins for three of the top four handlers.
Solitary wins to John Size, John Moore and Tony Cruz saw the table not change too much with 12 meetings remaining. Seven-time champion Size now leads by five from a three-way logjam for second with Moore, Cruz and Caspar Fownes locked on 46 wins each.
It took Size until the last race to maintain his buffer and it has taken his winner, four-year-old Australian import Sichuan Vigour, a tough season of slugging away in Class Two to break through.
A grateful Olivier Doleuze, returning after a three day suspension, had to waste hard to get down to 120 pounds to ride Sichuan Vigour, but did a good job from gate 12 to have his mount positioned in a one-off spot.
"Coming back from a three day break, I didn't have a lot of rides, just six, which is the usual thing coming back from suspension," Doleuze said. "Then John Size rang me to ride this one - it meant I had to sweat, but when it is one of John's, you know it is worth it."
Sichuan Vigour had only been placed in four of his 12 runs but had remained on a rating of 84 - a point less than when he arrived - courtesy of his consistency.
Despite now moving even higher, Doleuze said the sprinter might still handle himself in the top half of the grade. "I think he will improve after a season here," the Frenchman said.
John Moore might be more interested in winning more money than contending for trainers' titles, and he has certainly done that this term - his runners amassing more than $125 million in prizemoney domestically, a record. But now that the expat Australian finds himself in a dogfight for his sixth championship, he seems to be finding enough lower grade winners like Let Me Go to keep him in contention.
Let Me Go returned to the conservative riding tactics utilised earlier this season, with Tommy Berry taking the four-year-old back to second last in the run and then coming late with a wide run. Both Berry and Moore agreed that firmer ground suited the son of Dubawi as well.
"The pace wasn't that quick last start and that may not have suited him, but the wet ground did not help either," Berry said. "This time, with speed in the race, and on top of the ground, he sprinted better."
