Stakeswinning filly Ortensia resurrected her career after a near-death experience with a victory which could form the platform for a crack at the Stradbroke Handicap this winter.The three-year-old filly resumed on Saturday with a stunning win in the Winning Edge Presentations Plate (1000m) at Caulfield but only got there in the last stride after being held up for a run in the home straight.Jockey Craig Williams had to check on Ortensia and only after he pulled her to the outside to see daylight

Stakeswinning filly Ortensia resurrected her career after a near-death experience with a victory which could form the platform for a crack at the Stradbroke Handicap this winter.

The three-year-old filly resumed on Saturday with a stunning win in the Winning Edge Presentations Plate (1000m) at Caulfield but only got there in the last stride after being held up for a run in the home straight.

Jockey Craig Williams had to check on Ortensia and only after he pulled her to the outside to see daylight was she able to unleash a strong finishing burst to win by a nose from Al's Best Mate and Thorn Lake, who was 1-1/4 lengths away third.

Williams, who won a barrier trial on Ortensia nearly two weeks ago, said a run disappeared and that she should have scored an easy first-up win.

"At the top of the straight I had a lapful of horse," Williams said.

"I tested my luck a little bit as I thought there was room between the two leading horses but she was completely held up for 300 metres.

"When she came out I got desperate on her and she really knuckled down, but if she had got the run at the top of the straight she would have won by a couple of lengths.

"In the end it was a good effort to win with that weight (57.5kg) against the colts."

Trained by Tony Noonan, Ortensia has won four of her six starts.

She looked set to take last year's spring carnival by storm but an infected tendon sheath nearly killed her after she won the Group Three Thousand Guineas Prelude (1400m) at Caulfield on September 20.

The emotion of Saturday's win was evident among stable staff as Ortensia returned to scale.

"It was touch and go for a while there," Noonan's assistant trainer Wes Hunter said.

"All the staff did a great job to get her back."

"She was up against it today but she did a good job to push out and show her turn of foot."

But Ortensia has a reputation for being as mad as she is classy and, as has become customary, she was again the last horse in to the mounting yard and the first horse out on the track on Saturday.

Hunter said the ritual was to avoid a repeat of an incident last May when Ortensia flipped over while parading and was scratched from the Blue Sapphire Stakes at Caulfield.

Williams said Ortensia settled well in the barriers on Saturday and the signs were good for the future.

Hunter said Ortensia had grown and was now a big filly whose fitness would improve as she progressed through her autumn campaign.

He said the daughter of Testa Rossa would now head to Sydney where her targets against fillies and mares could include the Group Two Sapphire Stakes at Randwick on April 11 and the Group Two Emancipation Stakes (1600m) on Anzac Day.

"He (Noonan) is also talking about taking her to Brisbane for the Stradbroke (in June)," Hunter said.