The father-son training duo’s gutsy four-year-old Noble Joey was given a peach of a ride on the speed by jockey Kathy O’Hara and was able to hold off Ritchie’s fast finishing Better Not Blue to claim The Provincial Championships Qualifier (1350m). 

The result qualifies both runners for the $390,000 final on day two of the Championships in April. 

“This has been the plan for a long time now and it is a really good feeling to pull it off,” Luke Price told Sky Thoroughbred Central after the win. 

“We have a month to the race now.

“We will go home and look after him.

“He runs well with his races gaped, he loves a wet track and it is wet around April.”

Noble Joey, Better Not Blue and third placegetter Princess Posh, trained by Kris Lees, are the first three horses to qualify for the final.

All three were fancied in the market in the opening heat.

After being handed barrier 13, O’Hara elected to go forward on Noble Joey ($5) where she was able to dictate the tempo.

The classy jockey was able to steal a winning break at the top of the straight as Better Not Blue ($5) flew down the outside to finish second.

Princess Posh jumped as the $4.20 favourite and battled on for third.

“She did do a bit of work for the first furlong and a bit but I sort of stacked them up and tried to hold him up as much as I could,” O’Hara told Sky Thoroughbred Central.

“They started to really bank up around me coming around the corner so I slipped him a little bit of reign and he extended really well.

“He won pretty comfortably in the finish.

“That horse was finishing out wide but he didn’t really see it. He is the type of horse that when he gets challenged he finds under pressure.”

Better Not Blue qualified for the final through the same heat last year when the five-year-old finished third.

The son of Churchill Downs went on to finish seventh in the final. Four qualifiers remain in the series, with a heat at Kembla Grange on Thursday, March 23.