The Keep The Faith filly, trained by Peter Moody and ridden by Linda Meech, won by 1?-lengths from top local hope Indigo Dancer ($7), continuing city trainers’ stranglehold on the region’s richest two-year-old race.

Sayahailmary ($3.20) had the perfect run in second behind pacesetter Handsfree Lass before Meech shot to the lead at the top of the straight and was never seriously challenged.

Indigo Dancer loomed large when apprentice jockey Ashley Thompson peeled around the field at the bend but didn’t have enough to catch the winner.

It was Moody’s third Jack Maher Classic win, with Wodonga’s Brian Cox (four) the only trainer to win the race on more occasions.

No North East or Southern Districts trainer has won the race since Cox won with Cool Azz in 2002.

For Meech, her first Maher Classic victory made even sweeter as it gave her an almost unassailable lead in the 2009-10 country jockey premiership with just six days left in the season.

Meech predicted a bright future for Sayahailmary.

“We thought a lot of her, highly enough to scratch her from a mid-week race at Stawell to run her at Moonee Valley but things go right for her and she was probably just a little bit over the top, but today she proved just what a good filly she is,” Meech said.

“I probably thought I’d be a length further back than I was but she landed outside the leader and I was happy to just to keep her there because she’s such a nice horse and I thought if she kept out of trouble she’d win the race.

“I think she could probably get up to a mile and then depending on how she goes at the mile, she might be able to go further.”

Meech scored the first leg of a Wodonga double earlier in the day when she saluted aboard debutant Fantastic Porsche in the $12,000 John Smeaton Hcp (1200m).