Whitemore owner-trainer Graeme McCulloch collected the Devonport Racing Club's horse of the year award on the same day that the winner, Galway Girl, bowed out of racing with yet another success on the synthetic track.
Galway Girl, ridden by gun apprentice Erica Byrne Burke, was far too good for her three rivals in a depleted Benchmark 74 Handicap and will now make her way to New South Wales to be mated with champion sire Exceed And Excel.
"I would have liked to keep her going to have another crack at some of the good races here but she's worth more as a broodmare than a racehorse," McCulloch said.
Galway Girl had nine starts at Spreyton last season for three wins and four seconds which included a narrow defeat by Newhart in the Devonport Cup.
DRC chairman Barry Milton presented the 2020-21 season awards at Sunday's meeting, with leading trainer going to Leon, Dean and Trent Wells, leading jockey to Bulent Muhcu and leading apprentice to Codi Jordan.
The third of seven consecutive Devonport meetings before racing returns to the turf had only 62 runners in eight races but turned out to be an eventful day.
Class galloper The Inevitable made his synthetic track debut in the Open Handicap, coming from last to score by almost a length with 61kg.
It was the Scott Brunton-trained six-year-old's first run in Tasmania since he won the Tasmanian Guineas at Elwick in January 2019.
First prizemoney of $13,125 represents a very small portion of his career earnings ($761,400) but Brunton would have been pleased just to have him back in the winner's stall after a troubled run which included a battle last year with palmar osteochondral disease.
PODS, as it is commonly known, is a condition found almost exclusively in thoroughbreds and affects the lower ends of the cannon bone.
The meeting ended on an unusual note with protests in the last two races, with one jockey involved in both.
Apprentice Brandon Louis was first past the post on Has The Look in the Class 1 Handicap but the mare shifted in abruptly in the home straight causing severe interference to eventual third placegetter Gee Gee Can Win.
Even the margin between the two horses at the finish - 1-1/2 lengths - was not enough to stop stewards upholding Daniel Ganderton's objection, which left the second horse over the line, Clifton Danseur, as the winner.
Louis was then involved in another protest after his mount Mywordis dead-heated with Banca Nip (Ismail Toker) in the Rating 66 Handicap.
Toker protested for alleged interference rounding the home turn but it was quickly dismissed.
