Robbie Laing pulled off probably the greatest training achievement of his career when Sir Pentire, having his first in two years, won the Grand Annual Steeplechase at Warrnambool.The 50-year-old had tried to win the race for several years but the closest he had come was three second placings with Vowtinsk, Busby Glenn and Poker Face.Sir Pentire won the VRC St Leger six years ago and was runner-up to stablemate Busby Glenn in the 2006 Grand National Hurdle at Flemington.However he hadn't raced ov

Robbie Laing pulled off probably the greatest training achievement of his career when Sir Pentire, having his first in two years, won the Grand Annual Steeplechase at Warrnambool.

The 50-year-old had tried to win the race for several years but the closest he had come was three second placings with Vowtinsk, Busby Glenn and Poker Face.

Sir Pentire won the VRC St Leger six years ago and was runner-up to stablemate Busby Glenn in the 2006 Grand National Hurdle at Flemington.

However he hadn't raced over the jumps for nearly three years going into Thursday's gruelling Annual, the longest thoroughbred race run in Australia at 5500m and over 33 fences.

Racing Victoria stewards were concerned about the nine-year-old going into the race first-up and called the trainer in at Cranbourne last Sunday to ask him.

However Laing explained that Sir Pentire was fit to run after 12 barrier trials - five on the flat, two hurdle trials and five steeple trials.

"I told them that I wouldn't be starting him if he wasn't right," Laing said.

"This is the best ever, it's as good as winning the Australian Cup," he added, referring to his victory in that race with Roman Arch in 2006.

Laing said he didn't want to run the gelding in a lead-up race.

"Everything was going perfect as it was and I thought if I ran him on a country track something might go wrong and I didn't want to put all my eggs in the one basket," he said.

"He's a bugger of a horse. He kicks, he bites people. The only thing is he is good to ride and we love him. I'll savour that win."

Laing certainly experienced the highs and lows of jumps racing at the May carnival with two of his horses, Pride Of Westbury and Hassle, being killed in hurdle races over the past two days.

"I was so nervous the last hour before the race," he said.

"I wrote one of the owners, Nev Morgan, an email a week ago telling him to fly down to Warrnambool to watch him create history."

It was also a first for jockey Bill Williams who didn't know he had a ride in the race until Thursday morning.

He came back from a broken right wrist in last year's Annual aboard the Laing-trained Poker Face who fell at the last fence.

"I was told by doctors that I had a 25-30 per cent chance of riding in races again," he said.

"But I worked really hard. I took myself away from racing for about eight months and just worked on my fitness and got it back.

"Everybody should take their hat off to Robbie to do what he has done with this horse. It was an enormous effort by him his staff and the horse."

Sent out at $17, Sir Pentire hugged the inside running rail in the straight and careered away from the gallant Al Garhood ($8), who tried to lead throughout, to score by 11-3/4 lengths.

It's A Dud ($11) was 3-3/4 lengths away third with $3.80 favourite Pentacolo making up plenty of ground for fourth.