The Rod Northam-trained gelding, an odds-on favourite, had camped in fourth place behind race leader Gelsomina and then swooped around the Tamworth turn for jockey Robert Thompson.

Having his 12th start, Wisen Up sprinted well to pass Gelsomina and then hold off the Sue Grills- trained Sweet Feet before Grand Feeling, trained at Taree by Bob Milligan, rattled home for second.

“It wasn’t pretty but that’s him,”  Thompson told three of the syndicate – Paul Barton, Jim Nivison and Steve King.

“You can only win.”

The three syndicate members thought Grand Feeling’s late burst made Wisen Up continue his surging run.

Thompson agreed.

“It made him concentrate,” Thompson said.

Nivison, Barton and King were unsure of where Wisen Up might now head, with the Walcha Cup a possibility but the $100,000 Country Championship heat at Tamworth also looms large.

“You’ll have to ask Rod,”  Nivison, the president of the Walcha Jockey Club, said.

 Northam said the Country Championship was a possibility but likes the idea of winning another Walcha Cup.

He won the 2010 Walcha Cup with Prior Baron.

“That was a good day,”  Northam said.

“The Championships are a possibility but maybe the Walcha Cup.

“He’ll get in with a light weight and I think the track will suit him there.

“He can roll around there and be somewhere near them.”

Wisen Up can be a tricky horse, Northam said.

“You can’t get to the front too soon on him otherwise he’ll pull up on you.”