Partnered by Richard Cully, the son of Song of Tara gave Payne, now a trainer, his second Grand Annual, the trainer having teamed up with Cully to win the great race two years ago with Chapparo.

No Song No Supper carries the same colours worn by Payne in his riding days when he triumphed in the 2002 Cox Plate aboard that great WA galloper Northerly, and Duncan was delighted to have helped Payne win one of the country's iconic events a second time.

The galloper held on to defeat the determined challenge of Murray Bridge-trained Bold Zamour, ridden by Irishman Paddy Flood, with another Irish jockey Martin Kelly third on Thubiaan.

Duncan said the win had been almost four years in the planning. He bought the gelding's dam, Deep Time, with No Song No Supper in utero and hoped to have a smart stayer on the flat.

But the WA authorities cut the number of long distance events in that state, so Duncan sent the galloper to Payne, with whom he had developed a great relationship during the Northerly era.

"We gave him some conditioning and educational runs over there and then sent him to Patrick.

"He said this horse looks as though he has what it takes, and this has probably been a three- or four-year plan to get to here on Patrick's part."

Winning rider Cully said he had been confident most of the way round until he could hear the late challenge coming from Bold Zamour.

"We got a lovely pozzie, stuck to the fence and he jumped very economically, nothing too big or fancy. I just got a great spin the whole way.

"I could hear the other horse coming hard. I was glad to see the line. I didn't know who it was, but I could hear him. It was head down, arse up."

The winner was led away to cool down straight after the race with Cully unsaddling out on the track, but the rider said there was no problem.

"He was tired, he put everything into it, but he was fine, he's 100 per cent, He's just tired. He doesn't need to parade after going 5.5 kilometres."

Payne sent his Melbourne Cup-winning sister Michelle to make the speech at the post race presentation but afterwards said: "He was like a marathon runner; he just tried really hard and got a bit of heat exhaustion, but as soon as you put a bit of water on their head they are OK.

"He's an ideal Annual horse, he might not have the quality of some of my better horses but he can stay and he's agile and he tries really hard."

The day's other highlight, the $200,000 Warrnambool Cup, went to the man who dominated the three-day carnival, premier trainer Darren Weir.

The Ballarat-based handler has a satellite stable at Warrnambool and used it to devastating effect this week, mopping up feature events including the Galleywood Hurdle and the cup along with other support races.

He ran three in the cup, including $3 favourite Master Zephyr. But it was $8 chance Master of Art, partnered by Dean Yendall, who took the spoils with the favourite fourth. Weir made light of his record haul of winners in trademark fashion.

"There will be a few angry punters out there with the amount of runners I had, if a few of them didn't win. When you have plenty of runners you get plenty of chances but it's still very hard to win at this carnival.

"Master of Arts will go on. He might go to the 3200-metre race at Flemington, he might go to Brisbane for one of those 2400m races.

"It's been amazing. You set your horses for the jumps races, the Wangoom and the cup and run whatever else is around at the time.

"I will hopefully be here for the big race next year [the Grand Annual] with Fastnet Isle [who won on the opening day of the festival]."