The 6yr-old gelding held off the fast-finishing Rock Sensation to claim victory in the $40,000 feature race at the Otago Racing Club’s Melbourne Cup Day meeting.
Exchange took the lead after the final bend and opened up a decent gap in the 1400m open handicap.
Rock Sensation launched a bold bid for the lead from out wide.
He hunted down the race favourite but ran out of track, beaten by half a head.
Trainer Shane Anderton was pleased with the tenacity his horse had shown.
"He showed a bit of guts at the end there. It looked like he might have got headed with 50m to go, but he dug in deep," Anderton said.
The race plan was to "dodge along in behind."
"He has never been a leader but he always hits the line strong."
Anderton said he would wait to see how Exchange recovered before making a decision whether to head to Christchurch next week to contest New Zealand Cup week at Riccarton.
"This year he has really grown into himself. He was mentally a bit immature in the last few years and used to do a lot wrong. But now he is sort of doing things right, so it should be a good year for him."
The crowd was in the hundreds rather than thousands for the feature race. There was a steady flow of people still coming in for the later races, but it was below pre-pandemic levels.
"We’ve got to build it up again now. We sort of had a couple of years where we didn’t have anything, and I think the student exams were on too, so we’re waiting on a few of them to arrive.
"But it is a good enough crowd."
Those present were treated to a tremendous finish to 1400m race three. Pickens threaded his way through heavy traffic in a stunning run to the line. Jockey Shankar Muniandy showed stunning navigational skills and excellent patience.
Pickens came around the bend third-to-last and dropped another spot as he drifted wide.
There was a half a gap which quickly closed to quarter of gap. But Pickens edged his way through and closed on the leaders.
Then it was all about of timing. He hit the turbo not a second too soon and charged past William John and No Bouquet to win.
