Paul Duncan is pleased all his bad luck with Pinsoir is behind him.
He's not surprised about that - he reckons he had 12 months of it last season.
Pinsoir buried a series of unlucky runs in major sprints when he flashed home late to grab a last-stridevictory over Jazzella in the $100,000 Original Ossie Butcher Concorde at Avondale.
The Cambridge sprinter was luckless in both group one short-course events last summer.
He missed a gap at the 350m in the Telegraph Handicap at Trentham and powered home late to be beaten a nose for third.
"And earlier in the Railway he'd injured his head going into the race then got into trouble in a pretty rough patch about 900m out," says Duncan.
But the Cambridge trainer says he knew he had a serious sprinter to work with this season when Pinsoir returned bigger and stronger.
"We had him up earlier with two trials last season. This time we brought him in later and he had one trial and a race leading into this."
Jazzella looked certain to win when she dived through along the inside running rail at the 300m and established a break.
But co-trainer Donna Logan wasn't as confident at that point as those who had backed the mare.
"She's been pretty big in condition and when she went clear I thought: 'She might just blow up in the last few strides'."
Like the Pinsoir camp, Logan is looking to the group one Railway at Ellerslie, first leg of a $200,000 bonus with Trentham's Telegraph Handicap.
