"There is stacks of improvement in him," Waterhouse said. "It was just a great Tommy Berry ride; he didn't panic because he knows the horse and what he can do."

Berry was never worried when the challengers headed. "He doesn't have a great turn of foot but I knew he is very strong," Berry said.  "That came through in the last 100 metres  and he is going to improve a lot on that."

MOODY TREBLE 

Champion trainer Peter Moody may have lost his crown to Darren Weir last year and seen his reputation dented by one of his horses being drawn into the cobalt probe in Victorian racing, but the Caulfield handler showed there was nothing wrong with his training skills nor his placement of horses when he saddled the first three winners at Flemington on Saturday, landing a treble at all up odds of nearly 27,000-1.

Vlad Duric got the Moody party going in the opening Talindert Stakes for two-year-olds, a listed race over 1100 metres.

The jockey booted home the first-starter Pasadena Girl, who went off at  $61.

Ben Melham, who landed a treble at Caulfield last Saturday including the group 1 Orr Stakes for Moody aboard Dissident, did the business in the second event when he booted home the hitherto disappointing English import Sir John Hawkwood at odds of $26.

Craig Newitt, back from a stint in Singapore to partner star sprinter Lankan Rupee in the Lightning Stakes, made it three on the spin when he scored aboard another longshot, the $17 chance Sweet and Speedy in the group 3 Vanity, for three-year-old fillies.

Moody was all smiles – not surprisingly – after the first three events  of the day even though he subsequently suggested that the stable's real good thing of the day was going round shortly afterwards in a maiden race at Wodonga. Needless to say the well-supported debutante Vivid Diamonte, a daughter of Fastnet Rock, was beaten. Luck's a fortune.

TOUGH WANDJINA

A free-going Waterhouse front-runner leading all the way and defying all challengers to run him down in a big race. How many times down the years has the Sydney trainer produced tough-as-teak gallopers  to land major events?

Most punters have lost count, but for anyone keeping score there was another one to add to the list at Flemington on Saturday when the game  Wandjina took out the CSHayes Stakes.

Adrian Bott, racing manger for Waterhouse, said Wandjina would now go straight to the Australian Guineas in a fortnight. He could then have any number of options back in Waterhouse's home state.

"It was a great performance, an incredibly tough effort. He did a few things wrong in the run, he raced a bit keenly first up, he was a bit fresh. But it was real credit to the horse that he could fight it out," Bott said.

COBALT FAILURE 

Darren Smith's lawyer, Paul O'Sullivan, appears to have failed in an attempt to find out if there are any other excessive cobalt readings from horses in NSW in the past two years. O'Sullivan has used a racing website as a mouthpiece in the past week and it has clearly not impressed Racing NSW chief steward Ray Murrihy.

"We are not going to play out any inquiry in the media,"  Murrihy said. "We have ruled on that request and we expect Mr Smith to be at the inquiry at 9am on  Tuesday." Stewards had ruled out requests from O'Sullivan at the original hearing. O'Sullivan has threatened that Smith might not attend the inquiry.

BLOW-IN WINS 

If it wasn't for Cyclone Marcia, Just A Girl would have been in Brisbane on Saturday and James McDonald would not have had one less winner. Trainer Luke Griffith only booked the premier hoop at acceptance time on Wednesday and McDonald got the job done for him. "It is good when you can get those really top jockeys. They make a difference," Griffith said. "We would have been in Brisbane if not for the weather up there, so that is a big plus for her."

There had to be a change of travel plans for trainer Toby Edmonds and jockey Chris Whiteley because of the wild weather up north. Both were to fly out on the Coolangatta airport on Saturday morning but with the it closed they were forced to go to Brisbane fly down to Sydney.