South Australian born Mark Kavanagh has ridden the racing rollercoaster over the spring but today was on top of the world after winning today's Group 1 Tattersall's Cox Plate (2040m) with Maldivian.
The out of sorts galloper saved his best for the biggest stage when virtually leading throughout to score a gritty win.
Last spring was Kavanagh's first at his new stables at Flemington and he made a stunning debut.
“Kav” was the darling of the media with his exuberance and frankness as he had a stellar spring with the likes of Maldivian, Devil Moon and Divine Madonna, each winning Group 1 races.
This year was always going to be tougher, and made decidedly more difficult with the retirement of the two mares and the below par recent form of Maldivian as he headed to the spring features.
But in the space of an hour Kavanagh was back on top of the world.
The win of short-priced Victoria favourite Whobegotyou in the AAMI Vase was just an entrée to the Cox Plate success and his place in racing history.
Jockey Michael Rodd took the big striding galloper straight to the front and despite an early challenge from Theseo was allowed to bowl along under his own steam.
After some easy mid-race sectionals he was joined by two, then three, then four runners around the bend, but holding the rail he kicked strongly and straightened a couple in front.
Maldivian 
set up a winning break and held his rivals at bay, holding off Zipping who had made a mid-race move sensing the leader was getting away with murder.
Samantha Miss loomed up momentarily on the bend but could manage only third, while Zarita, who saved ground tracking Maldivian around the bend, held fourth.
Maldivian has been running well all spring but just not finishing off his races, the latest finishing ninth in the Caulfield Cup when failing to run out the journey.
But back to Moonee Valley, where he is unbeaten at the 2040m, Kavanagh produced what he described as his “trump card” to take today's success.
Kavanagh, being a former jumps jockey from South Australia's south-east, had used hurdles to sharpen Maldivian during the week and felt he knew the problem for his lacklustre finishes – his tongue.
But the tried and true formula of putting blinkers on a Zabeel gelding was the ace up his sleeve and the gear change worked a treat.
“You just can't underestimate putting blinkers on a Zabeel for the first time,” Kavanagh said. “It was the final card I had to throw out, so I waited and waited until the last roll of the dice.
“I can't speak. This is as good as it gets.”
Jockey Michael Rodd, who also rode Kavanagh's rising star Whobegotyou to win the AAMI Vase, said the win was a deserved success for his owner Joe Ricciardo after last year's Caulfield Cup debacle when Maldivian cut his neck on the gates.
But he paid credit to Kavanagh who had never lost faith in the gelding despite the promise earlier in the spring.
“It's like a dream, the run we had in front, and they left us alone over the back,” Rodd said.
“But full credit to Mark – he's thrown everything but the kitchen sink at the horse and he never gave up.”
Rodd won last year's Melbourne Cup on Efficient but rated today's success in Australia's weight-for-age championship as his crowning moment.
“The Cox Plate is definitely the race I put up as the best of the best.”
The favourite Samantha Miss was given every chance but couldn't match the first two, while the second favourite, Kiwi mare Princess Coup, was never a winning chance after settling last and being outsprinted in the run home. She finished ninth.
The time of 2.06.92 was more than a second and a half slower than Whobegotyou's Vase win, the final sectional being run in 34.20.
