Punters would be excused for wanting to provide their own bit of advice over the fence after the grey in question, Phrases, went all quaddie killer in the opening leg.

"I've had a $51 winner before but never a $91," Cheers said after her front-running stayer ran amok at Rosehill on Saturday. "It was a horse called Blindside.

"I was hoping he [Phrases] could run in the first four, but I didn't think he could win. I thought they would be too good for him up the straight."

But they just weren't. With the exception of Off The Rails, which headed the grey before going under narrowly, nothing really got close. And the trainer versed in American-interval training methods with an apologetic Ukranian jockey on top left Australian punters scratching their heads at what had just happened.

"Sorry about that, but I have to do it for [the connections]," jockey Serg Lisnyy said .

Cheers, who prefers the isolation of her training base at Taree to the bright lights of town, is a breed all of her own. Her horses race. And race. And race.

Phrases? He went around at Port Macquarie on Monday, just five days before this win in the city. Unconventional? Absolutely. But her methods have always been able to produce results – often when they are least expected.

"I've ridden this horse three times – today was the fourth time – and the first time I won and the next time he had had enough," Lisnyy said, expressing a sentiment which has no doubt crossed the minds of casual observers of Cheers' team.

"He went for a spell. Today he came around and I was confident because last start at Port Macquarie he did very well.

"Nice soft pace and he'll keep kicking. He's a giver all the time. The other horse [Off The Rails] went past me, but he [Phrases] gave me a little bit more near the line and my horse just knows when the line was coming."

Cheers can at least cheekily extrapolate a formline through one of the best horses in the world now.

Phrases ain't no Flintshire, the recent Hong Kong Vase winner which also ran second in the Arc de Triomphe and Breeders' Cup. Even that horse couldn't topple It's A Silver Trail when they met last year in France. It's A Silver Trail was part of the vanquished brigade at Rosehill on Saturday.

It's A Silver Trail's form was not the only standout thing about him on his Australian debut for Melbourne Cup-winning syndicators Australian Bloodstock and David Payne.

Noticeable marks on his legs tell of his receiving pin-fire treatment – in whch hot pins are used to kill bone – while in France, long outlawed in Australia.

And he will no doubt improve on a tidy fourth, on the heels of third-placegetter Magical Stance, after being afforded little room in the straight to let down.