Respected racing executives and breeders could see that without a flagship juvenile race the focus of two-year-old racing would continue to drift into NSW.

After some frank discussions and heavy lobbying, the Blue Diamond Stakes, complete with a sparkling diamond, arrived on Victorian Racing fixtures in 1971.

Like all major races that were newly gazetted, every heavyweight stable in Australia wanted to be part of it.

In 1971 it seemed only appropriate that Victoria's leading trainer of juveniles, Angus Armanasco, should be successful with his speedy colt, Tolerance.

A year later Tommy Smith brought his outstanding grey two-year-old John's Hope to Melbourne and he comfortably had the measure of the Victorian two-year-olds, which had some locals gnashing their teeth at the intrusion of interstate stables so early in the Diamond's history.

In 1973 the race was beginning to gain valuable traction in the media when the Flemington-prepared youngster New Gleam was pitted against arguably one of the fastest two-year-olds to come out of Adelaide, War Talk.

Since War Talk went within one-hundredth of a second of smashing the five furlong Moonee Valley record, War Talk and New Gleam took on the guise of a match race.

And they successfully managed to take oxygen away from the Golden Slipper.

New Gleam gained the upper hand in the closing stages to win the race in 1973. Tragically, War Talk was floated to Randwick and just a week before the Slipper shattered his knee and had to be euthanised.

It's said that the death of War Talk affected trainer Colin Hayes deeply, as he maintained the youngster was the fastest horse he'd ever had on his Lindsay Park establishment.

In 1975 Bart Cummings captured his first Diamond when Lord Dudley came from well back to win. Twelve months later Hayes opened his Blue Diamond account, and his family would go on to win the group 1 event eight times.

However, in 1985 the publicity machine that now surrounded the race appeared to falter following the Diamond of that year.

A young Ballarat trainer, Robert Smerdon, won the race with his speedy Let's Get Physical, but the performance of the second placegetter, Acumen, overshadowed the post-race publicity.

The VATC had invited world champion jockey Lester Piggott to Australia and he picked up the plumb ride on the Geoff Murphy-trained Acumen.

Let's Get Physical went straight to the lead while Acumen went back through the field and ran to the outside rail before balancing up and being narrowly beaten.

Murphy, who was never tolerant of a poor ride in the smallest of races, had to be restrained when making his way to the mounting yard.

"They kept telling me that he's the f-----g best jockey in the world and he steers it like that," Murphy yelled as horses returned to the mounting yard.

"How did I ever fall for this bloke. He must have given the leader 20 lengths start and that's including going via platform three at Caulfield Station.

"He must be joking."

It was all just part of Blue Diamond history.

Since then the race has still managed to uncover brilliant two-year-olds who went on to reshape the breeding industry of Australia, including Redoute's Choice and many other youngsters who underpinned the pedigrees of some of Australia's finest families, and it's share of dramas.