For the trainer it was revenge, for the jockey it resurrected a wave of nostalgia.
Samaready, a filly trained by Mick Price and ridden by Craig Newitt, won Victoria's premier juvenile race, the Blue Diamond Stakes, as though she was already a champion.
Having only her third start, Samaready wonthe A$1 million race at Caulfield on Saturday with class, courage and a burst of speed to score by an ever-widening three lengths.
The win convinced Price to now set her for the world's richest two-year-old race, the A$3.5 million Golden Slipper Stakes at Rosehill on April 7.
First, Price wants to savour a victory he believes should be his second in the Blue Diamond.
Nine years ago Price trained the winner Roedean, only to have the race taken from him two weeks later after tests on a swab taken from the filly revealed traces of a banned drug.
It was concluded that Roedean had been treated with an ointment which she had licked from her leg, leading to the positive test.
For Newitt, the win revived memories of Blue Diamond Day three years ago - a day he regards as the worst of his life.
Newitt arrived at Caulfield that afternoon in 2009 with high hopes of landing a big winner. But soon after he received the news his father had been killed in a car accident.
Rather than relinquish his rides, Newitt did what he believed his father would have wanted and rode, finishing a close second in the Group One Futurity Stakes on the Price-trained Light Fantastic.
"That day is a bit of a blur," he said. "I'll replace it with this one."
