Kyvalley Blur's blistering burst for a third straight salute highlighted a night for the stoic standies at Tabcorp Park, when the average age of winning horses was 6 years and two months.
With Gusto broke his metropolitan maiden status at age nine and start 115 for trainer Graeme Dalton and owner Leigh Graham, seven-year-old Our Twentyten toughed out his second career metropolitan win and stablemates Kyvalley Blur (10-year-old) and Keystone Del (11) finished one-two in the Aldebaran Park Melton Trotters Free For All.
"He's really in the zone at the moment," reinsman Chris Alford told Trots Vision post Kyvalley Blur's Group 3 win. "He got a good run and good trail up, but he finished really well and did it easy tonight. While he's racing like this he will be hard to beat any time he goes out."
The champion reinsman, whose record-smashing season win total stands at 423, also steered With Gusto to his maiden metropolitan victory when he held the front with the It Is I gelding and recorded a 2.5m victory, getting home in 27.4.
"We broke seven for the lead, which is pretty quick, and we then got to back it off a bit so he was good then. He's racing with a lot of confidence, winning those two claimers gave him the heart to kick on up the straight."
Our Twentyten, who turns eight when the calendar ticks into spring, "got reward for effort" according to reinsman Rodney Petroff, whose victory with the Muscles Yankee trotter was the first of a running double.
"He's been going very well," Petroff said. "He just made his own luck tonight and it turned out the right result. He's always thereabouts, he's run that many seconds in good country cups, it's just very good for the horse and the owners to get a win tonight."
HEAR FROM ALL THE WINNING DRIVERS IN THIS WEEK'S ALL CLEAR: