And if those decisions keep turning out the way they did on Sunday, he will stick to that method.

Hanley-trained seven-year-old Cosmic Fury scored a commanding win in the $20,000 Cowra Cup, leading from start to finish to claim the town’s annual feature race.

But it could have quite easily not have happened.

“We were booked at Wagga as well but scratched him and decided to go with Cowra,” Hanley said.

“I was hoping we had gone the right way but, like anything, I wasn’t certain at the time.

“He would have been top weight at Wagga but had no weight at Cowra.

“He doesn’t handle weight too well so we thought it might be a better option for him.

“It was a pretty solid field at Cowra; there were some good horses in it.”

While the Cowra Cup was a more ambitious aim than the $10,000 benchmark 60 Wagga race, it was the little things that drew the Hanley stable further north.

“It’s a tight little track there which suits him,” he said.

“He’s one of those horses that if he gets forward, he’s usually pretty hard to run down.

“I told jockey Simon Miller to get to the front and he did.

“We came from barrier seven, got across early and he more or less led all the way.

“It was a wonderful win.”

Hanley said the gelding’s impressive effort in less than ideal conditions at Wangaratta in its last start had given the stable added confidence for the Cowra race.

“He doesn’t really handle anything worse than a dead and the track didn’t really suit him at Wang that day but he still managed to win,” Hanley said.

Hanley said while he wasn’t sure where Cosmic Fury would next start, the $27,000 Bega Cup on February 5 loomed as a good option.

“We’ll see how we’re going, but we’ve got a couple of others that can run there on that day, too, so that might sway me,” Hanley said.