Ridden by apprentice Teagan Voorham, the normally front-running Liffeybeau sat off the pace before swooping four wide on the home turn.

He quickly dashed to the front in the straight and, despite ducking back to the rail, scored by a long neck from Toorak Affair and Cheers Chappy.

Trainer Michael Trinder said he was keen to try new tactics on Liffeybeau who had led at his previous five starts and won two of them.

“I wanted to get him to settle so I removed his blinkers and told Teagan to ride him back,” Trinder said.

“The only problem was that, without his blinkers, he laid in and switched off totally when he got to the front.

“But he will improve on that run. He wasn’t fully fit going into the race so I worked him over 600m this morning.”

The Ken Evans Memorial is named in memory of the former leading trainer whose big wins included two Launceston Cups with Vamos.

His family has sponsored the race for the past 31 years.

Gone Girl showed she is on target for the three-year-old fillies’ staying races with a last-to-first performance in the Craig Hanson Memorial.

Jockey Craig Newitt settled at the rear to avoid being caught off the track and, after being pushed eight wide on the home turn, came down the outside rail as Gone Girl made it two wins in a row.

Trainer John Blacker said that Gone Girl would go to the $100,000 Strutt Stakes (2100m) in Hobart on February 11 for her next start.

“She’s pretty clean-winded and won’t need another run before then,” Blacker said.

”I made the mistake of backing her up too quickly once before so I won’t do it again.

“I’m confident she’ll stay.”

Punters were inclined to undervalue Gone Girl’s last-start win in a Longford maiden and she eased from $6 to $12 in some fixed-odds markets (paying $8.20 on the tote).

“She won well at Longford where, as Craig said, she was simply better than them on a track that didn’t suit her,” Blacker said.

Newitt said he was rapt to join an illustrious honour roll of jockeys who have won the Craig Hanson, named in memory of the top jockey who died in a race fall at Mowbray in 1983.

The meeting also featured memorial races for successful trainer Roy Coghlan; his wife Dora, a Tasmanian Turf Club life-member; club stalwart Jack Chambers and Melbourne Cup-winning legend Ray Trinder.