Outsider Savoureux snuck up on the inside to beat the $2.50 favourite by a neck. A frustrated Jay Ford never actually got to pull the whip through on Kaepernick.

"He just cruised up to them and was going to win easy and threw it away," Ford said.

"As soon he got to them he wanted to lay in and if I hit him he was going to bowl over the ones on his inside. He still got a couple of them.

"He has got so much talent but is still learning. Instead of trying to win the race in the final 200 metres I was fighting him."

Tim Clark said he was confident on Savoureux, because of her record of  four  wins from eight starts, but did know of Kaepernick's problem.

"She is a good mare that likes a bit of cut in the ground and she did a good job," Clark said.

Second time lucky

Rory Hutchings couldn't find a winner in his first stint in Australia but his second started with him guiding Lucy's Look to victory on Saturday.

The 20-year-old is about to win his third New Zealand apprentices' title and even though he has ridden 340 winners and won a couple of group 1s, he can still claim 1-1/2kg in Sydney.

"I'm out here for six weeks to see how it goes and I could extend it," Hutchings said, "I have a couple of months left on my apprenticeship over in New Zealand but I can come over here and extend it for 12 months."

Lucy's Look was part of a winning treble for  Chris Waller, who  saddled 20 of the 71 runners at meeting. She was an unlikely winner with racing manager Liam Prior saying "we were hopeful rather than confident" when asked about the improved performance.

Marshall outrides claim

Apprentice Taylor Marshall showed off his front-running skills to outride his three-kilogram claim by scoring his 20th win on Vergara on Saturday.

"It is what every apprentice wants to do - outride their claim. This is a step on that path," Marshall said.

The Anthony Cummings-trained mare, which disappointed when ninth in the Dark Jewel Classic at Scone last start, will head to Brisbane after beating Role Model and Georgey Aeroplane.

"We had the Tatts Tiara on the agenda at the start of the preparation but Scone sort made us think about it," stable foreman Edward Cummings said.

"She will go up to Queensland now and the Eyeliner Stakes in a couple of weeks could be a target but the Tiara in three weeks is still there."

Better late than never

John Thompson should have been training Whittington as a two-year-old, but instead it took until the dying days of the entire's four-year-old season  to get his hands on him.

"I knew a bit about him looking at the early  [Patinack] stock going to the sale," Thompson said of Whittington, which was  sold at the 2012 Magic Millions sales.

"I must admit I was a bit cranky he [Nathan Tinkler] was selling him. He looked like he would run from day one. He was a very sound and correct horse. Gai [Waterhouse] was onto that and the rest is history."

Whittington won for the first time since Magic Millions day last year, this time sporting the maroon colours with a map of Queensland in the listed Lightning Handicap.

Thompson and Grandview Stud's Michael Grieve left Doomben unsure if Whittington has one more start in him after a rails-hugging ride from Ric McMahon.

But his service fee is already set in stone and Whittington will stand at $8800 for the next breeding season.

"He's proved himself as a two-year-old sprinter, three-year-old sprinter in the Magic Millions and now the Lightning as a four-year-old," Grieve said. "He's done everything we need him to do."

Frespanol tests the nerves

Even the ever-optimistic Gai Waterhouse's nerves are frayed with Ipswich Cup-bound Frespanol, which atoned for a last-start Scone Cup defeat with a narrow win in the listed Spear Chief Handicap.

"He really puts a sweat on our brow," Waterhouse said. "[But] he looked the winner walking around and he's done really well since coming to Queensland."

Frespanol came out on top in a three-way finish involving Tornado Miss and Darci Be Good for his first stakes win.

"He does just clock off - not that he's ungenuine, but he thinks he's done enough," jockey Kerrin McEvoy said after another heart-stopping finish.

"There's no reason why he wouldn't get further ... you just have to ride him accordingly. We had a plan thinking he had the best turn of foot, which he showed. That's what got him out of an awkward position into a winning position."