That again raised doubts over his stamina at the absolute top level but if his trainer Cran Dalgety was feeling down after the race, Mark Purdon had reason to be feeling more peeved.
As he was returning to the Melton stabling area the wrong way after pulling Adore Me up, he had to watch Arden Rooney, who he trained until just five weeks ago, win the Hunter.
Arden Rooney was moved to Australia and the care of popular Victorian horsewoman Kerry Manning at the start of the year to concentrate on country cups with the hope of a big-race miracle.
That arrived on Saturday night as he trailed Philadelphia Man, who pulled too hard and like many of the other favourites imploded, leaving Arden Rooney lonely at the top of the straight.
From there he held out the flying late charge of Franco Ledger, with the quinella the same as the Kaikoura Cup three months ago but under vastly different circumstances.
Back then the pair were favourites, on Saturday they combined with another former Kiwi in Easy On The Eye for a near-record harness racing trifecta, with the result at least a boost to our breeding industry before next week's yearling sales.
Arden Rooney is now likely to miss the Inter Dominion in Sydney on March 1 as his connections are not happy that he would have to race in a supplementary heat at Menangle this Saturday because he was nominated for the series while still trained in New Zealand.
Adore Me will also skip the Inter in favour of the A$200,000 Ladyship Mile the same day, so heading into this week's five Inter heats spread around four Australian tracks, the Interdom market looks mighty confused.
The big names - Beautide, Christen Me, Terror To Love, Guaranteed, Philadelphia Man and For A Reason - will go into the heats having run unplaced, some quite dramatically, at their last start.
While the Hunter was the peak of the Kiwi disaster on Saturday night the Victoria Derby wasn't much better as hot favourite Follow The Stars was again beaten, this time after being forced to sit parked outside winner Menin Gate.
Follow The Stars over-raced, getting his mouth open wide down the back straight and then ran wide on the home bend but even then still had more luck that Art Union, who locked sulky stays 600m from home and lost all chance.
His driver Dexter Dunn had earlier piloted Sheemon, who galloped on the final bend in the Australasian Trotting Champs, while later he drove Bit Of A Legend to be beaten as a $1.30 favourite in a free-for-all.
The Trotting Champs were a ray of light, though, as all-the-way winner Flying Isa is still owned in Waikato and will probably return here to race in features like the Rowe Cup.
The night's other main trot saw Stent bolt in, suggesting he deserves favouritism for the rich features at Melton in the month ahead.
