The quality of the Riverton stayer has never been in question, with seven wins in the South Island along with a second in the Listed Marton Cup (2200m) at Hastings in January of this year. But his latest northern mission had produced more bad luck than good, most notably a last-start sixth when badly blocked in the straight in the Listed Rotorua Cup (2200m) on May 11.

Saturday's $40,000 open handicap looked like an ideal race for the five-year-old Sacred Falls gelding, who dropped to 55kg with the 2kg claim of apprentice jockey Lemmy Douglas.

After settling at the tail of the nine-horse field for most of the journey around the Trentham circuit, Douglas brought Prince Alby  to the outside and began to surge forward coming up to the home turn.

Prince Alby came widest of all and quickly took command at the top of the straight, opening up a clear advantage.

Pride Of Aspen  surged through on his inside down the straight to throw down a stern challenge in the last 150m, but Prince Alby dug deep and held that rival out by a long head. There was a big margin of four and three-quarter lengths back to the third-placed Marroni.

Prince Alby is trained and part-owned by Kelvin Tyler, who bought him for only $3,000 as a yearling at Karaka in 2020. His 32-start career has now produced eight wins, six placings and more than $242,000 in stakes.

"It's good to get that win today, he probably deserved it really," Tyler said. "He's been running good races but just not getting a whole lot of luck. The Rotorua Cup was a hard race to watch – we think he probably should have won that race. But that's racing.

"He got in with 55kg today, a nice weight in that sort of race and on that sort of ground, and he's won it well.

"I'm not really sure what we'll do with him now. We could put him aside, or we could have a look for another race for him. I haven't thought too far beyond today at this stage, so it's something to think about over the next few days."