TALE Of The Kraut sure knows how to put Dean Mirfin's heart in his mouth.
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For the second race in a row the Bathurst trainer watched his recently acquired mare edge out a rival for victory in a photo finish, this time in Monday's Bathurst Toyota Class 2 Handicap (1,400 metres).
Just one week after winning by a matter of centimetres on the same track Tale Of The Kraut ($1.65 favourite, Mathew Cahill) stayed ahead in a Tyers Park thriller over Brett Thompson's Denace ($4, Winona Costin).
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Tale Of The Kraut looked to have her rival beaten with 200m to go but Denace put the pressure back on with a resurgent run, finishing a half head short of the leader.
Western Parade ($10, Grant Buckley) finished out alone in third.
Since coming across from the Danny Parsons stable over spring Tale Of The Kraut has picked up a Highway Handicap placing and back-to-back home wins for Mirfin.
With Monday's win Mirfin now has bigger races on the mind.
"That's two weeks in row she's won like that so she's trying to give us a heart attack, but she's getting the money and that's what matters," he said.
"She's progressing beautifully and if she comes out of this race with a benchmark of around 62, which we assume she will, we'll have a look at running her in the Country Championship heats.
"We ran her again today to try and get that benchmark up before she could take a little breath and ease up for a week or two and set her for it."
A scratching brought Monday's race down to just six starters.
It gave Mathew Cahill less traffic to work through as he found the front early on, joined towards the head of the field by Taldora Miss.
The other Bathurst-trained entry in the race, Paul Theobald's Red Marauder, was urged ahead by Ken Dunbar and raced past the pair with 800m to run.
Petain sat two lengths off the group with Denace and Western Parade the same distance further back bringing up the rear.
Costin got busy on Denace with the home straight in sight, flashing from the rear of the field to create a three-wide line with Tale Of The Kraut and Taldora Miss.
Denace took the lead at the 400m as Taldora Miss faded along the rail.
The favourite got back to the lead and threatened to kick away with the finish in sight but Denace found another gear to mount a fresh challenge.
Tale Of The Kraut battled on to win and in the process push her career prizemoney past the $50,000 mark - more than 80 per cent of which has come from just her last four starts.
Western Terror had the strongest finish of the race to finish two lengths off the pair at the front.