Four horses have made an ideal start to chasing Picnic Horse of the Year honours with wins at two of the first four meetings.
At Healesville on Saturday the first two races went to the in-form pair Nic Says No and Downtown Man.
Troy Kilgower’s Nic Says No has already raced three times this season, backing up his second at the Yea season opener with victory at Alexandra and then another last week. 
At Healesville he only had one rival to beat — his stablemate Houdini Catarno, who was also racing for the third week in a row — and with 3kg less scored a slender win under Ben Moffat despite hanging out from the 500m onwards and proving difficult to ride out.
Co-owned by Kilgower and Damian Williamson, who purchased the Niconoise gelding for $2,000 as a yearling, Nic Says No is from the family of  Kiwi star Damask Rose and Doncaster winner Brutal.
Ian Pankhurst’s home-bred Manhattan Rain six-year-old Downtown Man went “picnicking” for the first time last season and won four of his eight starts. This season, after breaking the 1200-metre track record at Yea he followed up with an easy 2½-length win last Saturday over the longer 1650-metre journey.
Meanwhile at Mansfield on Melbourne Cup day, both These Boots and First Venture notched their second wins of the season.
These Boots, for the potent Don Dwyer/Shaun Cooper combination, did best in a two-horse race, while Yea maiden winner First Venture backed up from a 15½-length 10th at Berrigan on Saturday to win by a nose under the urgings of Tracey Johnson.
Shaun shines
Troy Kilgower and Don Dwyer shared the training honours at Healesville with two winnes apiece.
Kilgower’s lightly raced Written By mare Written For Us (ex Price/Kent junior) broke her maiden at start four to complete his pair, while Dwyer cleaned up the card with the final race-to-race double, both winners ridden by Shaun Cooper.
Cesar Bessan took out the 1000-metre open trophy, the gelding’s third win at start 57, while Voriah ran 0.36 slower winning the restricted trophy over the same distance, her third win in 36 attempts.
Cam’s a double threat
Dual licence-holder Cameron Thompson rode his first amateur winner at Mansfield on Tuesday and 50 minutes later almost made it a double on a horse he trains.
Thompson saluted aboard the Peter Foster-trained mare Lika Mosh, who brought up her 11th career win at start 47.
Thompson then just came up short on his mare Gamadale Indi, but Foster did snare a brace in the last when his 10-year-old Understated bolted in. Veteran trainer Ron Hockley shared the honours with a double of his own.