The daughter of Mr. Henrysee was well back in the field early before coming with a strong late run to claim the race favourite and fellow Golden Slipper placegetter Choisir over the concluding stages.

Victory Vein was considered the best filly in the field in last Saturday week’s Golden Slipper at Rosehill but on the day she was unable to hold out the Queensland youngster Calaway Gal.

In the run to the line in today's Group One feature Victory Vein had cleared away from her rivals to win by two and a quarter lengths. Choisir, who hit the front in the home straight, held on to finish second just ahead of the John Hawkes trained Planchet. Snowland was fourth.

Today’s win was a welcome change of luck for Murray who had walked away with three heartbreaking second placings in feature races in Sydney over the past ten days.

As well as Victory Vein’s second placing to Calaway Gal, the Slipper meeting gave the veteran trainer a major race second placegetter when his dashing stayer Universal Prince was run down in the million dollar The BMW Stakes by last season’s Cup Champion, the recently retired Ethereal. On the day both Victory Vein and Universal Prince looked the winners at the 200 metre mark of their respective races before being swamped late by the winners.

Yesterday feeling his luck was ready to change Murray saddled up two well credentialled runners in the million dollar Heroic Championship, but again he found a rival in Pillaging too good on the day. When the runners hit the line Pillaging held a narrow margin over the Murray trained Half Hennessy, while another Murray trained galloper Recruiting was third.

The rider of Half Hennessy fired in a protest against Pillaging being declared the winner of the Heroic Championship, but stewards dismissed the objection after hearing from all of the connections.

PIC - Quentin Lang.

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