"Here's mud in your eye" is traditionally the winning rider's catchphrase after the ATV Cup, but it will never be any truer than in Tommy Berry's victory under difficulties on John Moore-trained Rewarding Hero.
The ATV Cup is famous for having been held every year without fail in rainy conditions, and a few seasons ago, the meeting was abandoned with races still to run with circumstances so bad that made visibility impossible.
On Saturday, the rain held off at least until the presentation of the trophy, but visibility was still an issue for Berry, who returned with one eye closed and was stood down from his remaining rides.
The Australian jockey took a clod of mud in his right eye riding trackwork in the wet conditions on Saturday morning, and thought he had washed it out before going to the races.
"I tried to flush it out and I might have got the dirt out, but maybe the surface of my eye got scratched," said Berry after Rewarding Hero swamped another of Moore's five runners, Secret Sham, in the final 150m to win running away.
"It hasn't got better through the day, it has just got worse.
"Behind the gates for the ATV Cup, I had both eyes shut the whole time to ease the pain. It wasn't too bad when I was inside in the cool air, but outside when the hot air hit it, and then there was sweat running into it as well, that was when it was really hurting."
Berry missed nothing in his final two mounts, with the school of thought prevailing that he was better to rest the eye than attempt to ride, but he was straight to the airport afterwards for a flight to Singapore to ride Dan Excel in the rich Singapore Airlines International Cup today.
"I've got five rides there and I'll try to see a doctor in the morning before the races, to try to get rid of the problem completely," Berry said.
Rewarding Hero has been one of the success stories of the season for Moore's yard, recording his fifth win from eight starts as he graduated to Class One and stood the leaders a big start before unleashing a brilliant sprint.
"He's always shown a good turn of foot, but the difference today was the lighter weight," said Berry. "If you look back at his recent runs, he's had that acceleration but he has only sprinted for 200m then kind of levelled out and held them off.
"But he's had 132 and 133 pounds and dropping to 116 today, he was able to sustain it longer. He let down brilliantly when I asked him to go and then he let down again when I pulled my stick through.
"It just shows how much weight makes a difference."
Stablemate Secret Sham (Joao Moreira) was well-backed to displace Rewarding Hero as the favourite in betting, and then never looked like losing - until Rewarding Hero appeared on the scene quickly to put him away by three quarters of a length.
"I was extremely happy in the run," said Moreira. "Everything went perfectly and there were no excuses - he just ran into a better horse on the day."
Packing Whiz produced one of his better efforts lately, charging into third under a big weight.
Moore may have snared a stable quinella at the top end of the race, his other runners filled the last three placings, with well-backed option, Flash Knight, suffering his second bleeding attack as well as pulling up lame.
