Racetrack whispers are the stuff of legend. How else do you explain Blake Shinn's family knowing he had lost one of the most prized seats in Australian racing the day before the man himself found out?
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"We knew the night before, but we didn't want to be the ones to tell him," Shinn's mother Carol Shinn said. "I didn't want to put any pressure on him.
"We just kept telling him how good our horse was. We said, 'you've just got to trust us, you've just got to trust us. We know how good this horse is'."
That was while Shinn was in the back seat of a car, hitching a lift up the F3 to Newcastle for Cameron Handicap day.
He felt obliged to switch the iPad on, flick through a few replays of his family's horse, Fenway, and compared them to that of Thunder Lady, whose connections were also lining him up for the ride.
Unsurprisingly, blood runs thicker than water. There was never really a choice to be made.
Cue Fenway, trained by his stepfather Lee Hope and stepbrother Shannon, inducing tears of joy from Shinn after his filly topped First Seal, later found to have bled from one nostril, in the Vinery Stud Stakes.
Just to add another twist, Thunder Lady finished third.
"I knew that was the right thing to do and I knew it would mean so much to them if I did it," Shinn said. "It's funny how things turn out for the best if you stay loyal.
"You've just got to keep your head high and work hard. If you keep doing that the good things will come."
While Shinn's exuberant celebrations made for great theatre at Rosehill, Shannon Hope was as understated as they come after a maiden group 1 win.
Shock? Maybe, considering punters only wanted one horse, backing First Seal from $2.10 into $1.80. But he always knew the Seymour-based training partnership had the right man for the job.
"He's got a great strike rate when he gets taken off one," Shannon Hope said of Shinn.
"It means a lot [to all of us]. He rode it properly ... what a ride from barrier 11. We're really happy. He's an emotional person and put it this way, my wife has been up here for a week and she does a lot of work, but I didn't realise how much she actually did."
The same couldn't be said of First Seal, who appeared to barely spend a penny in the run after her new pilot James McDonald found the perfect mid-field spot one horse away from the fence.
But when Fenway dashed clear half-way down the straight McDonald always had his work cut out as First Seal struggled to find the electric sprint she has become known for over shorter distances.
"It's disappointing to get beat," trainer John Thompson said. "We'll have to look at the sectional times and they just ran home a bit quick and we couldn't pick her up. She'll go back to the Queen Of The Turf."
McDonald conceded his filly was always going be tested at the trip, but thought he had the measure of Fenway, which scored by a short neck, when it mattered in the last 200 metres.
"We had a lovely run and about a furlong from home I was just going to go straight past them, but she might be just a bit suspect at the trip," he said.
Fenway has soared up betting charts for the Australian Oaks on the second day of The Championships.
The filly looks like she'll relish going down the long road. Something Shinn and the Hopes are all too familiar with.
"It's right up there," Shinn said. "This win is not about me ... it's about my family.
"It's all the hard work and years of long hours. I've seen all the work that people don't see. They deserve this win more than anyone. I wish my stepdad could be here. I just would love to him to be here enjoying this win.
"I have to thank my friends , my family and everyone for their support. I think Guy [Walter] would be looking down proudly as well."
