Stakes winning Filly Ortensia resurrected her career after a near-death experience with a victory which could form the platform for a crack at the Stradbroke Handicap this winter.
The 3-year-old resumed yesterday with a stunning win in the Winning Edge Presentations Plate (1000m) at Caulfield but only got there in the last stride after being held up for a run.
Jockey Craig Williams had to check on Ortensia and only after he pulled her to the outside to see daylight was she able to unleash a strong finishing burst to win by a nose from Al's Best Mate and Thorn Lake, who was 1 lengths away third.
Williams, who won a barrier trial on Ortensia nearly two weeks ago, said a run disappeared and that she should have scored an easy first-up win.
Trained by Tony Noonan, she has won four of her six starts.
Ortensia looked set to take last year's spring carnival by storm but an infected tendon sheath nearly killed her after she won the Group Three Thousand Guineas Prelude at Caulfield on September 20.
"It was touch and go for a while there," Noonan's assistant trainer Wes Hunter said.
"She was up against it today but she did a good job to push out and show her turn of foot."
But Ortensia has a reputation for being as mad as she is classy and, as has become customary, she was the last horse in to the mounting yard and the first out on the track. Hunter said the ritual was to avoid a repeat of an incident when Ortensia flipped while parading and had to be scratched from the Blue Sapphire Stakes.
He said the daughter of Testa Rossa would now head to Sydney where her targets against fillies and mares could include the Group Two Sapphire
Stakes at Randwick on April 11 and the Group Two Emancipation Stakes (1600m) on Anzac Day.
Larry's Never Late is on the South Australian and Queensland Derby path after his last-to-first victory.
The gelding has a strong staying pedigree being by Pentire out of the Zabeel mare Laebeel who was narrowly beaten by Sky Heights in the 1999 Caulfield Cup.
The gelding scored by 1 lengths from Bauble with Ozolins 1 lengths away third.
- AAP
Racing: Filly back and in top form
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