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Tasmanian racing and breeding came to the fore on Cox Plate day at Moonee Valley thanks to trainer Adam Trinder and his star filly Mystic Journey.

Mystic Journey, by the successful Tasmanian-based sire Needs Further, won her second successive race in Melbourne when she dominated the G2 Fillies Classic (1600m).

Mystic Journey had gone five weeks since her previous win in the Listed Jim Moloney Stakes at Caulfield after Trinder elected to take her home to Tasmania and bypass a start in the G1 Thousand Guineas to focus on Cox Plate day.

Ridden by Anthony Darmanin, Mystic Journey beat the Thousand Guineas placegetter and G1 winner El Dorado Dreaming in a strong endorsement for the Tasmanian breed.

Trinder, a son of the great Tasmanian jumps trainer Michael Trinder and a former jumps jockey himself, paid only $11,000 for Mystic Journey when he purchased the filly as a yearling.

Mystic Journey (Needs Further x White Gold by Colombia) has now won six of her eight starts, including three at stakes level and has earned $317,350 prize money.

She is by the Encosta De Lago sire Needs Further, a G3 winner for Gai Waterhouse and a half-brother to G1 winner and sire Hallowed Crown (Street Sense).

Mystic Journey’s dam White Gold won two races and is also the dam of the seven-time winner Leodoro (Jayemzed).

Armidale Stud-based Needs Further is also the sire of the Listed winner Pateena Arena.

High-priced import Ventura Storm won his first race in Australia with his strong win in last Saturday’s G2 Moonee Valley Gold Cup to clinch a start in the Melbourne Cup.

Ventura Storm won the G1 Gran Premio del Jockey Club and was second in the G1 St Leger at Doncaster as a 23YO before he was purchased by an Australian syndicate and imported to join the Lindsay Park stable.

Some 17 starts and two years later the 6YO is now a G2 winner in this country to the relief of co-trainer David Hayes.

"Finally he's won but he has run very good races along the way," Hayes said.

"He's a gelding now, he's had a wind operation and we've worked him out.”

Venture Storm (Zoffany x Sarawati by Haafhd) was a 110,000gns purchase at the 2015 Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up Sale by Peter and Ross Doyle Bloodstock before being bought privately on behalf of clients of the Hayes stable.

He has now won seven races and placed another five times for prize money of $1,381,863.

He is one of two winners from Sarawati, a half-sister to Listed winner Sahool (Unfuwain) and a three-quarter sister to the dam of Listed winner Erysimum (Arcano).

Ventura Storm is the only G1 winner by Zoffany, who shuttled to Coolmore Australia for four years from 2012 to 2015.