Cody Morgan repeated the Country Championships Qualifier-Tamworth Showcase Cup double for the second time in as many years with Ligulate poking through on the outside for the barest of - but very special - wins on Sunday.
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Unfortunately the Tamworth trainer was confined to watching the race on a laptop from his bed at Tamworth hospital after breaking his leg in a trackwork incident on Saturday morning.
He would have endured some tense moments as the judges dissected the photo with Ligulate and the Richard and Michael Freedman-trained Zaunkonig hitting the line together.
The initial impression was that the Sydney raider had got up on the inside.
But for the Morgan clan a bit of local knowledge offered some hope as they waited for the result to come through.
"It looked like to the common eye that we'd have got beaten but the angle of the photo finish here is deceiving," Cody's father Glenn said.
"It's only that we've raced here for probably 20 years and that we know that it does favour the outside, that we knew that we were still half a chance."
The win was the gelding's second in three starts at Tamworth and followed an impressive win in last month's Country Championships qualifier.
It's the second time Cody has won the two biggest races in the area after Unbiased took out both last year.
Now trained by Glenn, last year's winner ran another good race and was beaten for third in a photo. It was a tight finish with the top five all within a length of each other.
In his first start since finishing eighth in the Country Championships Final Ligulate, as he was when he won the championship qualifier, was placed back in the field before peeling wide around the final turn and unleashing a typical late burst.
Glenn said he felt the four-year old was in the race from around the 600m mark.
He was "just travelling so strong".
"He was in a good rhythm and the track was very fair- he struggled in Sydney on the heavy soft track because he is so big - but today he was in a nice rhythm and the 600m I knew he'd be strong late because he's worked on this track, he's done all his hard gallops here and I knew that he'd hit the line pretty strong," he said.
Owned by a big contingent of owners through syndicators Australian Bloodstock, it was also a big win for them. A lot of them are farmers. They've also got bakers and butchers.
Ligulate's win made it a double for Morgan and jockey Andrew Gibbons, after Blazing Tycoon had earlier won the inaugural Country Magic.
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Speaking to Sky Thoroughbred Central before the race Glenn said Cody was feeling "a little bit sore and sorry today".
"Racing NSW one of their specialists operated yesterday and [he] had a few screws, bolts and plates.
"He'll be back on deck in a week or so I guess," he said.
He paid tribute to the staff at the stables.
"It's been a tough week as you could imagine. We had two ambulances here yesterday with Cody and you seem to think all your cards are drawn and you luck's run short," he said.
"But full credit to all of our staff."
"We had trackwork riders come in on a Sunday morning and work him this morning. We had four girls at four o'clock."
