A deeply emotional Shae Dinunzio returned Shystar to the Ballarat winner’s stall on Saturday, just hours after learning of the death of his first racing mentor.

Dinunzio began his career in Adelaide under Group 1-winning trainer Paul Beshara, who passed away that morning, before later moving to Victoria to join Phillip Stokes as an assistant trainer at Pakenham.

Beshara’s stable star was Happy Trails, the Flemington specialist who claimed three Group 1 victories.

Representing the Stokes yard at Ballarat, Dinunzio welcomed back Shystar following her determined victory in the $250,000 Sportsbet Emerging Stars (1400m).

“It’s been a bit of a tough day,” Dinunzio said.

“We lost Paul Beshara today and our thoughts go out to Collette and the family.

“He was a great man to me. He got me into racing and was my first boss and I reckon he might have willed that over the line in the last 50 (metres).”

Given a positive ride by Lachlan Neindorf, Shystar ($3.10) led throughout and held off the $3 bookies favourite Royal Flare by a short-head, with Golden Spritz ($17) another neck away.

Dinunzio said Stokes had earmarked the Emerging Stars Series earlier in the preparation when the filly returned from her two-year-old campaign.

“We picked out one of the heats at Geelong and she won well there,” Dinunzio said.

“She’s a promising filly but the question mark was the soft track and probably 1400 metres.

“It’s probably not her sweet spot, 1200 metres probably is, but it was the perfect race for her, very suitable.”

He added that expectations remained measured for Shystar at this point of her development.

“We’ll just go through our grades but she’s probably a Stakes grade Adelaide filly in the autumn, so we’ve just got to plot a path to get there,” he said.

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