Black Piranha made it back-to-back wins in the $1 million Stradbroke Handicap and gave Nash Rawiller his second Group One of the day at Eagle Farm yesterday.
The Con Karakatsanis-trained 6-year-old, who hadn't won a race since his Stradbroke success 12 months ago, took his prizemoney to almost A$2.5 millionwith his barnstorming finish.
Rawiller, who earlier won the Group One TJ Smith on the Chris Waller-trained Pressday, registered his ninth win at the elite level this season when Black Piranha finished too strongly for Melito with Mic Mac third.
Black Piranha became just the seventh horse in the 121-year history of the Stradbroke to win the race in successive years. The last to do it the incomparable Rough Habit in 1991-92.
The favourite Whobegotyou was slow out of the gates and failed to flatter, finishing near the tail of the field.
Trainer Bevan Laming proved once again why he's one of the country's best trainers of stayers when he won his third Brisbane Cup with Crossthestart.
Laming teamed with his favourite jockey Chris Munce to land the 2400-metre Group Two feature with the 5-year-old who set a race record of 2:27.52, shaving 0.66 seconds off the mark set by Newport in 2007.
Laming and Munce won the Brisbane Cup Desert Chill in 1995 and 1997.
Crossthestart recorded his ninth victory from 29 starts with a 1 lengths win over Scouting Wide ($6) with Ekstreme ($21) just a nose away third.
Munce's success continued his great form since returning to Brisbane earlier this year and winning the Group One Queensland Oaks on Miss Keepsake last week.
Laming revealed he was the fourth trainer to prepare Crossthestart but he knew from the first day he came into his stables he was a stayer.
"Ralph Manning, Roger James and Peter Moody had him before me but they thought he was a sprinter," Laming said.
"From the first day I got him I thought he was a stayer."
Crossthestart's win proved a worthy consolation for Laming who earlier his star filly Ringa Ringa Rosie go down to Pressday in the Group One TJ Smith (1600m).
Laming plans to take both gallopers to Melbourne in the spring.
