Darren Weir has smashed all records and sent out more than 400 winners this season, with six weeks left.

Moonee Valley had, statistically, been his best track, with 35 of those winners coming at venue.

And, true to form, he landed a double there on Saturday, even if it was with two horses who were hardly expected to play much of a part.

Punters who had weighed in on his more-fancied runners must have been tearing their hair out for ignoring the duo given their starting prices.

Stylish Miss, who scored in a fillies and mares contest, and Black Tomahawk, who took out the 2040-metre Open Handicap, saluted at $31 and $51 respectively. The latter was friendless in the betting, having eased from an opening quote of $21, the former having drifted from $26.

A dollar on the pair would have netted any punter optimistic enough to have coupled them in a double $1581 - evidence enough that keeping the faith in the master trainer sometimes can lead to logic-defying results.

Stylish Miss, partnered by Beau Mertens, showed plenty of guts and determination to fight back in the short Valley straight to pip the Jye McNeill-ridden Mamzelle Tess, who was trying to win her fourth race in a row for Leon and Troy Corstens.

Black Tomahawk has been a frustrating galloper for punters and his connections. The seven-year-old rarely wins - he had scored only four times from 35 starts before Saturday' - but he had been placed 14 times, a record suggesting a horse that was game enough but lacking a decisive turn of foot.

Normally seen to much greater advantage over further than 2040 metres, the son of Seul Amour rattled home under McNeill in the straight, getting up in the shadows of the post to nail the well-backed New Zealand raider Megablast right on the line.

"I hadn't backed it," quipped Jeremy Rogers, Weir's racing manager. "I didn't see that one coming. He was being readied to run in a longer race as he usually needs a mile and a half."

If the trainer's presence (or otherwise) can be counted as a mark of confidence then Weir wasn't all that optimistic himself.

The champion handler opted to go bush, to St Arnaud, to watch a nephew play in a junior football competition and then stay on to watch the seniors, Rogers confided.

One trainer who was very much on the ground - although he looked as though he might float above it - was Caulfield handler Clinton McDonald.

He saddled a double, when the filly Pure Emotion (Daniel Stackhouse) broke her duck in the opening two-year-old race, and the classy three-year-old Revolving Door (Mark Zahra) came back to the sort of form he showed early in the spring when he won first up in the Epworth Medical Imaging Handicap.

McDonald was all smiles, and why wouldn't he be after landing a juicy double that paid odds of 104-1 given Pure Emotion went off a $16 chance and Revolving Door started at $6.50.

The trainer said Revolving Door had benefited from being gelded and was now much more of a racehorse.

Tasmanian trainer Scott Brunton does well with his Victorian runners, and Lord Da Vinci ($4.80) scored well for the Apple Isle handler and his jockey David Pires.

Flemington training duo Mathew Ellerton and Simon Zahra were grateful they listened to jockey Chris Symons, who recommended that they put blinkers on Essence Of Terror and run her in a 1000 metre race after she disappointed at Geelong. It was sound counsel as Symons steered the $8 shot to victory.

Petrology has been a frustrating horse over the years for the Hayes/Dabernig partnership but the five-year-old gelding put his best foot forward in the Travis Harrison Cup to win narrowly under Cory Parish.