It's nearly a decade since a jockey-trainer combination crossed the border from South Australia and raised the eyebrows of racing's aristocracy by taking out one of Australia's most cherished classics, the Victoria Derby.
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It wasn't that a SA partnership had been victorious in a race steeped in tradition, it was that a woman had arrived at Flemington and collected one of the country's most sacred races -
becoming the first female to win the classic.
Clare Lindop's poise, balance, and amazing tactical reactions on Rebel Raider, in a race of changing speed and tempo was the difference between winning and losing that day.
To the racing industry of SA her feat of clinching the Flemington group 1 success was no surprise.
Lindop was the first Australian woman to win a group 1 race, the first to win a metropolitan premiership and the first to ride in a Melbourne Cup.
Rebel Raider's trainer Leon Macdonald said at the time: "This is the biggest thrill of my career - to do this with Clare and the whole team, it's just the happiest day of my life."
Lindop had regularly finished at the top of the jockeys' premiership in South Australia and had tipped the odd top male jockey off a horse because her riding expertise was superior to anyone in the state.
On Saturday, the ducks appear to be lining up again. Macdonald and Lindop are combining again in another derby, and this time on their home turf in Adelaide.
This week they were both putting the finishing touches on Waging War in an effort to win South Australian Derby.
"I first met Clare in 2002 she was coming out of her time and I needed a stable jockey as Jason Holder, my regular then had gone overseas, and I knew Clare was going from strength to strength," Macdonald said.
"She has an endless capacity for work. I mean, every day she will be at the track and ready to get the team worked. It's been 17 years and she has been a great asset," Macdonald said.
He says Waging War is a three-year-old who will relish the Derby distance and is thriving.
"He's won his past two. He's strong, he's tough and he's in a good space, so he's going into a major race in faultless condition," he said.
Lindop, who married earlier this year, was born in Warrnambool in Victoria but plied her trade in South Australia.
She rose through the ranks and relished the challenge of mixing it with some of the the most polished horse people in the state.
Some believe Lindop's success and application to her trade has been the reason for a sizeable group of female jockeys now contesting races throughout the state.
The team know that Waging War is pitted against some strong interstate rivals when they compete at Morphettville on Saturday, but that happened before nearly a decade ago when the odds were very much against them, and yet they came out on top.
