Flying four-year-old Ortensia, one of the hard-luck stories of yesterday, was produced by Rhodes’ broodmare Aerate’s Pick and weaned and educated at the 80-year-old’s Riverside Stud.

The Testa Rossa mare was a $1.95 odds-on favourite for yesterday’s $150,000 Listed Stakes (1400m) but was trapped between and behind runners for much of the straight.

Ortensia hit the front when jockey Craig Williams found a gap at the 200m mark but the Tony Noonan-trained mare was caught flat-footed by $21 long shot Strawberry Field, which flew home to win by half a length.

“Some experts reckon she shouldn’t have got beat the day Apache Cat won (in the Group 2 Schweppes Stakes on Cox Plate Day) either, although I couldn’t see her winning that race,” he said.

“She’s a good mare, just out of luck at the moment ... but she’ll come back, she’ll be right.

“I suppose it does make you proud ... it’s a great thrill.”

Ortensia was one of the stand-out fillies of last season, winning seven of her first 10 starts, including two group races, and finished her three-year-old season with a plucky third in the group 1 Stradbroke Hcp at Eagle Farm last June.

She was backed into favouritism yesterday on the back of her fourth behind the brilliant Apache Cat two weeks ago and a strong sixth behind weight-for-age star All Silent last month.

Ortensia has been nominated for two Group 1 races at Flemington on Saturday — the $500,000 Patinack Farm Classic (1200 m) and the $1 million Emirates Stakes (1600 m).

Rhodes doesn’t bet these days — “if a horse I bred wins, well, that’s good enough for me” — but he has a tip for anyone who might have been a victim of Ortensia’s hard-luck second yesterday.

“Don’t jump off her, she won’t let you down again,” he said.