The Philip Feanny-conditioned Exhilarate, a chestnut filly by Blue Pepsi Lodge — Purejoy began her career on a winning note on Saturday.

After stumbling just after leaving the starting gates, Exhilarate (Oneil Mullings) recovered quickly and immediately challenged Apollo Bay (Linton Steadman) for the lead inside the first furlong (200m) of the maiden event.

Exhilarate then pulled away from Apollo Bay to score by four-and-a-quarter lengths in the short three-furlong (600m) dash. Hot Ice (Hakeem Pottinger) came on the scene late for third.

The winning time of 35.1 seconds was the same time done by the Anthony Nunes’ Necromancer, who recently won the second two-year-old race of the season.

“The performance was not too bad for a first-time runner. She ( Exhilarate) ran a good time and she looks like a very nice filly but let’s see where she takes it from here.

“She faltered a bit after leaving the starting gates but that didn’t hamper her as she recovered nicely and came home comfortably in the end. She is young and it is a learning process as she goes along and without a doubt, she will improve a lot,” Mullings said.

While attention was placed on the race itself, something mysteriously occurred in the betting. For most of the time leading up to the start, Exhilarate was offering odds of 1-9 as the favourite and Apollo Bay was at 3-2 as the second favourite.

The race started and when the final odds came up Exhilarate was somehow offering 5-1 with Apollo Bay being installed as the howling 1-9 favourite.