The benefit of wintering in sunny Queensland paid dividends for Ibicenco, who surged home to get up in the last couple of strides to defeat Mr O’Ceirin in the Slickpix Stakes.

Formerly known as the Heatherlie Stakes, trainers often used the race as the beginning of a Caulfield Cup preparation.

Whether the Caulfield Cup winner was smothered away in that field is somewhat doubtful, as most have little chance of qualifying.

The winner would have blown most punters out of the water; he was a noticeable drifter, paying $51.

Now that he has found form he is more that capable of winning further races, Peter Moody grades his horses well, now the gelding has found form he will be placed to advantage.

Ibicenco is bred to get much further than Saturday’s Slickpix Stakes; he won the Sandown Cup last spring and could be heading in that direction again.

His dam, Iberi, by the English Derby winner Rainbow Quest, was a useful staying mare in Germany, where each of her seven foals won races.

The short priced favourite, Palak, after drawing an outside gate was forced to cover a lot of ground, yet was racing like a winner, but failed to run on as expected.

Ibicenco was a second leg of a winning double for Peter Moody, two races earlier on the program when he trained the trifecta.

Ibicenco returns to form