The Andy Gath-trained gelding, who beat home all bar Robin Hood, Smoken Up and Sting Lika Bee in last year’s Grand Circuit event, showed that he was worthy of another shot at the race with an all-the-way win in Saturday night’s $25,000 Casey Classic.

The gelding’s victory over a field containing Grand Circuit winner Manwarra Goforgold and rising star Make Waves was all the encouragement his Long Forest trainer needed to press on for a Victoria Cup start with the six-year-old.

“Whether he gets in the Victoria Cup or not we don’t know, but he won’t race again until then (December 20, at Moonee Valley),” Gath said.

“He ran fourth in the race last year and he’s probably going better this time around, but then again it’s probably going to be a better race with no EI (Equine Influenza) restrictions.”

Regardless of the make-up of the $375,000 Group 1 feature, Gath has Ultimate Mark coming good at the right time.

A week after running last in the Cranbourne Cup, when he never got into the race from a horror back-row draw, the son of Ultimate Falcon relished the return to the front line.

Gath’s driver wife Kate then shot him to the early lead in the 2100-metre event and from there he was close to a good thing according to the trainer.

“He’s never been beaten from in front in a mobile, so once he found the lead he was always going to be hard to beat,” Gath said.

And Ultimate Mark didn’t let his trainer down. After a moderate lead time they covered the first half of the last mile in just 61.7 seconds, enabling Ultimate Mark to pull out a 57-second final 800m for a 1:58 mile rate.

On the line the $7.80 pop had 1-1/4 to spare over Manwarra Goforgold ($2.20 fav), who dropped out sharply rounding the turn after racing outside the leader but got going again to run second, with Make Waves ($4.60) 1-1/2 metres back in third spot.

The victory lifted Ultimate Mark’s record to 17 wins and 16 minor placings from 44 starts for $174,546 in stakes.