IT was a win that so easily might never have happened.

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Only eleven weeks prior to winning the Great Northern Urunga Cup last Sunday, Dew Drop was being driven from trainer John Sprague’s stable in Port Macquarie to a meeting in Grafton when the both the car and horse float rolled in a Pacific Hwy accident near the Emerald Beach interchange.

Fortunately for Sprague, the gelding and two other horses that were in the float, they all walked away from the accident relatively unharmed.

There were certainly no effects shown on Sunday as the Eavesdropper six-year-old came from the tail of the field at the final turn to score by three-quarters of a length ahead of Hurricane Max and Bozeman.

The trainer admitted he was surprised Dew Drop won the feature event over 1,315 metres “second-up after the accident”.

“I’m getting him ready for the prelude for the Port Macquarie Cup and this was meant to be just a good track gallop for him but it worked out a lot better,” Sprague said.

The six year-old was slow out of the gates and settled at the rear of the field but jockey Luke Rolls admitted having the rail in the true position along the straight after being out five metres over the remainder of the track proved an advantage.

“He sort of got held up just before the corner but when I got back into the cutaway he attacked the line really well,” Rolls said.

By Brad GREENSHIELDS