Gai Waterhouse & Adrian Bott have combined with Tim Clark to claim the Group 3 Neville Selwood Stakes aboard Serpentine (+230), as the seven-year-old gelding picked himself up off the canvas to kick back and claim back-to-back victories.
The son of Galileo showed his customary toughness in the concluding stage of the 2000m event, even though he was clearly headed by Zeyrek (+160) at the 150m mark.
Clark gave Serpentine a good rev up and let him rip at the top of the straight but the stayer didn't really pick up until the second horse got past him and gave him something to chase.
Outside of the top two, Renaissance Woman (+800), who was the only runner to make up ground from the back of the field, ran into third and Little Mix (+550) battled on for fourth place after travelling three-wide without cover for the entire trip.
Adrian Bott was on track to speak about the win of Serpentine post-race.
“He runs the same style of race, and that's the pattern we know from him. We've got to try to ride him accordingly,” Bott said.
“You'll see Tim (Clark) went for him a long way from home. There's never an immediate response, it's a long, sustained run.
“They outsprinted him from the 800 (metre mark) to the 400 (metre mark) but I was always confident that he wasn't done with yet, he was going to be working back into it.
“Once he got up level at the furlong there, I thought it's going to be awfully hard for them to sustain that run that he can.”
Tim Clark is building a good affiliation with the winner after being on him at his last two victories and he spoke about the win post-race.
“That's what I said to Adrian (Bott) and Nick (Williams) and the guys before the race, that was my concern if something came to him quickly whether he would have time to respond to that challenge,” Clark said of the tactics on the winner.
“But he just does enough to keep his head in front.
“He's in great shape. He's in a really good zone. Obviously he's an older horse but he's going as good as ever.
“It's pretty warm out there so it's going to dry out a bit. But the track is in good order.
“Obviously a 6m rail is always a little bit conducive to on-pace but if they go fast enough I'm sure that there's horses that are good enough to come from the back and win.”