Unfancied Awapuni galloper Master Fin caused a massive boilover in one of the special features at New Plymouth on Saturday when he outstayed his rivals to take out the NZB Airfreight Road To The Jericho (3210m).
It was the second running of the race that serves as the first New Zealand qualifying event for the unique A$304,000 ($326,000) Jericho Cup (4600m) at Warrnambool in late November, a race that was introduced in 2018 to commemorate the centenary of a race run on the desert sands in Palestine in World War I to divert attention from the Australian Light Horse's charge at Beersheba.
Trainer Mark Oulaghan was unsure as to whether his 9-year-old Nom Du Jeu gelding had the class to defeat his 13 rivals on Saturday but knew he had him rock-hard fit off the back of three consecutive placings in hurdle events.
That fitness paid dividends for Master Fin as rider Chris Dell settled him in midfield before moving forward to dispute the pace on the point of the home turn. Master Fin refused to yield as he got the better of the well-fancied Hi I'm Nikita in the last 100m to score at $61 on the TAB Fixed Odds market.
Mark was still pinching himself after the race as he took in what he had just seen from his charge, who was away from the track for three and a half years after sustaining a tendon injury when winning the Summer Cup (2400m) at Trentham back in September 2016.