From there, the only question was whether Well Written could slingshot Alabama Lass, a question that lingered far longer than Marsh and the punters who took the $1.50 would have liked.
Alabama Lass was racing at a 1400m distance further than her best, but at the 300m mark she gave a kick that would have made her late co-trainer Bev Kelso proud – and that emotional fairytale win was a fleeting possibility.
But then Well Written got balanced up and showed the turbo button that has made her one of the most exciting New Zealand horses in years.
She swept past Alabama Lass at the 100m and won going away, the ideal comeback capped with a $500,000 bonus as the first NZB Kiwi runner from last season to win a domestic Group 1, a bonus that lasted all of one race.
Marsh has experienced some emotional moments on racetracks in the past few years though it rarely spills out publicly.
But relief poured out of him.
“I don’t usually get nervous before a race or that emotional after but so many people want her to win and keep winning so this means a lot,” Marsh said.
“Alabama Lass kicked really hard and did Ken and Bev so proud so to get her and win going away was a good performance for a mare who still hasn’t actually turned 4 yet.
“And Matt [Cartwright] rode her perfectly.” But the relief runs deeper than that.
New Zealand racing has a wonderful history of sensational 3-year-old fillies but many don’t return to the mountaintop at 4.
Well Written has done that now with a Group 1 against the older horses, and it means her spring dreams are still alive.
Those dreams are the A$1.5 million ($1.83m) Epsom at Group 1 under handicap conditions over 1600m at Randwick on October 3, followed by the A$10m Golden Eagle on the same track over 1500m on October 31.
Well Written still could have targeted those races had she been beaten today, but they would have started to seem unobtainable or wishful, and attention could have easily turned to a mares-only race to try to seal that Australian Group 1 win needed for her breeding career.
Not now.
Well Written’s victory has proved she is better than last season and ready to cross the Tasman, especially as the Epsom is a handicap in which she is expected to get around 54.5kg.
She sat at the head of the Epsom market at $4 tonight.
That great race will still be incredibly hard to win and the Golden Eagle, headlined by the sensational Sheza Alibi, even harder four weeks later.
But on this first Saturday in spring, unbeaten in seven starts and with Australian glory beckoning, Well Written was keeping dreams alive.
Just how good, or great, how ready or even how special Well Written really is, we will find out in the next two months.
But for now there is no doubting she is the best horse in New Zealand.
And still perfect.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.