It’s been a turbulent few days for Hugh Bowman but he’s at least back on some sort of a high after winning race two on Melbourne Cup Day at Flemington.

Bowman rode Sangster to win the Victorian Derby on Saturday before having to cut plenty of weight in anticipation of his ride in the 2011 Melbourne Cup.

Unfortunately though that ride hasn’t eventuated with Mourayan scratched this morning leaving Bowman high and dry.

He’s at least salvaged something form the day though with the favourite Foxstar getting up to win the 1700m TAB Sportsbet Australia Stakes.

The pace was hot early with Femina Fashion driving across from the outside gate to take the lead.

She held that advantage over Who’s Ready in second until they made the turn at the top of the long straight.

A pattern is already emerging on Melbourne Cup Day with riders electing to swing out to the middle of the track rather than saving ground up the inside.

That’s exactly what Foxstar did in company with brave mare Vintedge.

The two were produced together with 200m to go and Vintedge looked to have the race won all the way up to the line.

In fact the connections of Vintedge can count themselves unlucky as Foxstar never really got in front of their horse except for a fortunate bob of heads right on the line.

Still though that’s what counts and Foxstar gets the win in race two on Melbourne Cup day at Flemington.

Bowman says he always has plenty of confidence riding a horse trained by Guy Walter.

“When he brings a horse to a race like this you can guarantee if it doesn’t win it’ll run very very well,” he said.

Bowman could have held his rival up in traffic if he’d chosen to but it was a bold move to continuing running his own race.

“Maybe if I had to tried to hold him in longer I wouldn’t have won,” he said.

Walter agrees that it was a somewhat fortunate win, in fact at first he didn’t think he got there.

“I thought she’d got beaten,” he said.

That said the result is on the board giving her what now is quite an impressive overall  record.

“She’s not a bad mare, she’s only had 18 starts and that’s her 6th win,” he said.

“I may back her up Saturday in the Matriarch Stakes.”

Foxstar paid $4.60 for the win with online bookmaker Luxbet while Vintedge was $2.60 for second and the fast finishing influential Miss in third at $2.50.

Flemington Race 2 Results – Melbourne Cup Day

Finish	No.	Horse	Jockey	Trainer	Weight	Margin
1st	5	FOXSTAR(13)	Hugh Bowman	Guy Walter	54.5	1-43.11
2nd	3	VINTEDGE(6)	Damien Oliver	Chris Waller	56.5	0.1L
3rd	6	INFLUENTIAL MISS(3)	Steven King	Pat Carey	53.5	2.1L
4th	1	FEMINA FASHION(16)	Brenton Avdulla	Trevor Whittington	58.5	2.4L
5th	11	COLD STEEL REIN(5)	Stephen Baster	Leon Corstens	53.0	2.5L
6th	7	MANILA JEWEL(2)	Danny Nikolic	David Hayes	53.5	3.5L
7th	8	APENNINE(4)	Luke Nolen	Mark Jackson	53.0	3.9L
8th	15	TANTRUM(1)	Michael Walker	Nigel Blackiston	53.0	4.9L
9th	2	SMOULDER(9)	Craig Newitt	Graeme & Mark Sanders	57.0	5.4L
10th	14	FINE CALIBRE(15)	Dean Yendall	Aaron Purcell	53.0	7.2L
11th	16	YASEY SAN(7)	James Winks	John Pascoe	53.5	7.3L
12th	12	YOU I FIND(14)	Kathy O’Hara	Lee & Shannon Hope	53.0	9.0L
13th	9	GAIL(12)	Nicholas Hall	Robbie Griffiths	53.5	9.1L
14th	10	PARIS MEMORY(10)	Glyn Schofield	Tony McEvoy	53.5	10.1L
15th	17	WHO’S READY(8)	Corey Brown	Alan Scorse	53.0	11.1L
16th	13	EXCHANGES(11)	Kerrin McEvoy	Anthony Freedman	53.0	11.3L
Src	4	ROYAL COMMANDS	Dwayne Dunn	Mathew Ellerton & Simon Zahra
Src	18	CABASSO	Dean Holland	Russell Cameron
Src	19	ORIENTAL RUBY		Gerard Moloney
Src	20	KIM HEAVEN		Bart Cummings