The horse no one wanted has gone up the Highway and come home with a bucket load of cash.
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Upper House edged home to win the $75,000 Highway Handicap (1500 metres) at Rosehill on Saturday to make it two wins and two places this preparation.
The half-length victory from Zardoro, with Onemore Sapphire a little further back in third, will be the last for the Norm Gardner-trained gelding before the four-year-old goes to the paddock for a spell.
Gardner bred the son of Zariz himself, but when he tried to syndicate it couldn't find any buyers.
He could only give him away.
"I tried to syndicate him, but no one would take a share in him so we kept him ourselves," Gardner said.
"My wife Dianne gave her mother a share for Christmas and that was it. No one wanted him."
Gardner said Upper House has been racing without luck, but he was always confident he was good enough to win a Highway.
His target will be to win another when he returns in the spring for his next preparation.
"He's a horse I always thought could win a Highway. He's a nice horse, but he's had a lot of bad luck in his races," Gardner said.
"Some of it was his own bad luck. He's a bit of a knucklehead.
"He misses the start. He's the kind of horse you never know what you're going to get with him.
"He can go out and have a blinder or he can miss the start, but this prep he's really turned the corner.
"I thought he was a mile over the odds today because he's in form and he did the job for us."
Gardner also has a nice filly in Rosy Dawn, who won at Wagga Wagga last start, and he thinks she can also win a Highway and then go on to become a city class horse.
He'll run her again in Wagga Wagga next week.
"She's a really, really nice horse," he said.
"If she goes good there then we'll target a Highway with her, but she's probably better than Highway class.
"She's a very fragile sort of filly, but got a lot of ability and will get better with age."