A futile season of experimentation has given way to a career focused exclusively on sprinting for Standish Handicap winner Adamantium.

Trainer Danny O'Brien had already abandoned any idea of stretching Adamantium out to 1600m, but his runaway win in Tuesday's 1200m, Group Three feature sealed the decision.

Adamantium showed great promise as a spring three-year-old, winning two 1200m races in which he gave the impression he would be suited over more ground.

But the Standish win has convinced O'Brien the horse is capable of winning Australia's biggest sprint, the Group One Newmarket Handicap.

"We've worked out that he's a dead-set six furling horse," O'Brien said.

"He'll get into the Newmarket with no weight on his back, he handles the Flemington straight track brilliantly - he has to have a big chance."

Adamantium's alternative career came to an end when he failed in the Queensland Guineas and the Daybreak Lover Stakes at the final two runs of his last campaign.

He returned with two moderate sprint runs before winning over the Flemington "straight six" last month.

Adamantium ($5.50) jumped straight into the lead and had opened up a five-length break at the 400m which could not be bridged.

The favourite Catapulted ($2.20) led the chasers, but could only narrow the margin to 2-1/2 lengths.

Goldstone ($21) finished third, a further 2-1/4 lengths away.

As impressive as Adamantium may have been, the Standish also proved remarkable for the re-appearance of the 11-year-old former Hong Kong champion Good Ba Ba.

Unwanted in betting at $31, Good Ba Ba settled among the last few and remained at the back of the field until the 250m mark where the qualities that won him three international Group Ones in Hong Kong had their impact.

The veteran who is now in the stable of Rick Hore-Lacy, his seventh trainer, picked off his opposition, hitting the line in fourth place having run his final 400m in 22.79secs and his last 200m in 11.84secs, the best closing sectionals of the race.

Hore-Lacy said Good Ba Ba would run next in a 1000m race at Flemington on January 19 with his main aim the Group Three Carlyon Cup over his favoured 1600m trip at Caulfield on February 9.