For a long while it was a typical tale of two horses at a yearling sale - and for a long time trainer Jamie Edwards thought he'd ended up with the wrong one.
But the win of Sertorius at Caulfield on Wednesday has made Edwards and co-trainer Bruce Elkington a lot happier with second best.
"We picked out two horses at the sale four years ago and Sertorius was one of them," Edwards said.
"The other won a Cox Plate."
That was Pinker Pinker who won last year's moonee Valley feature, only to die last autumn after suffering a reaction to a routine injection.
"She won a Cox Plate and we haven't," Elkington said.
"But I suppose we've still got a horse, and he's not a bad one."
Sertorius ($2.80 fav) scored his fifth win from his past five starts in the Bluecross Plate (1600m), earning himself a run at Flemington in Melbourne Cup week.
The son of Galileo beat Mourinho ($41) by 2-3/4 lengths with Tribal Rock ($2.90) a short head further back in third place.
"There's a nice $100,000 race at Flemington we've got lined up for him," Elkington said.
"It isn't the Cox Plate, but we can wait till next year."