Son of Lago Delight, Marconi already had a fair deal of pressure when he first stepped on to the race track. In the short time he was there he showed a glimpse of the form which had many people excited about the geldings future.

After winning two from three starts though he was struck down with a throat complaint which put a firm halt to his progression in late 2009.

After successful surgery and more then a year of recuperation, the Mick Price trained horse again has tongues wagging.

“He had the throat operation he needed to get his career back on track,” Price said.

“Hopefully, it was the same throat operation So You Think had. Look how he came back from his operation.”

Marconi is entered in tonight’s Essendon Mazda 55-Second Challenge at Moonee Valley Raceway after setting a blistering pace in a Cranbourne barrier trial.

In fact not only did Marconi win the trial by six lengths, he also ran the journey 0.3 seconds faster then fancied sprinter Reward For Effort.

However the excitement quickly cooled after Marconi drew the outside barrier for his Friday night return leaving him with a mountain of a challenge.

“I just didn’t have another race for him,” Price said.

“It is a very ordinary gate and we all know bad gates cause difficulties. It’s a 0-82 race which is not going to smash his rating so we’ll see how he goes.”

Jumping from barrier 8 after scratchings, Marconi will be ridden by Craig Newitt who steered him to both his previous wins. Marconi is currently at $3.80 for the win with Luxbet, where betting is available on the full field of eight horses.

Essendon Mazda 55-Second Challenge Field

No	Horse	Trainer	Jockey	Barrier	Weight	Handicapper Rating
1	JETEVEN	Ray Besanko	Jordan Mallyon (a3)	5	59	82
2	KENNY KID	Byron Cozamanis	Steven Arnold		59	82
3	DAD KNOWS BEST	Wayne Nichols	Dean Yendall	1	58	78
4	KWASSA KWASSA	Shane Stockdale	Peter Mertens	2	58	78
5	PAPERCUT	John Moloney	Mark Zahra	4	58	78
6	MARCONI	Mick Price	Craig Newitt	8	57	76
7	BELCINO	Steve Richards	Omer Ay (a3)	3	56.5	75
8	ALPHA PROXIMA	Leon Corstens	Damien Oliver	6	56	74
9	KARIBA KARIBA	Robbie Griffiths	Luke Currie		56	74
10	WORDMASTER	Bennie Benbow	Chris Symons		54	70
11	BUZRAAMI	Allan J Clark	Talia Rodder (a3)	7	54	64