It was in the early hours of August 12, 2012, when the seasonal team of horse midwives at Blue Gum Farm in Euroa were called to a broodmare well into the final stages of labour.
They were used to sacrificing sleep for new life at this time of year. They may have been bleary-eyed, but they watched attentively while Personal Ensign went through the final groans of giving birth.
It was 12.45 am and while all deliveries were important at Blue Gum, those attending Personal Ensign knew from previous labours that she was always like clockwork.
In foal with little fuss, she would foal down nearly to the given date, and she was a perfect mother, protective, mindful of the pitfalls that lay ahead for her offspring and always had plenty of milk.
When the staff saw a half hour-old foal wriggling and struggling to stans, they reported for the record that it was a filly with four legs, a main, a tail, and was breathing perfectly in rhythm.
However, vital data on the make-up and bone structure of the newborn would have to wait until the sun came up.
One suspects that staff on these stud farms are often like expectant parents waiting to detect a clue as to what the future may hold.
In this case they were largely deflated. As Phillip Campbell, the principal of Blue Gum, admitted this week: "Her front legs seemed to rotate out and she was a little bit long and sort of angular and you could say her appeal was limited."
On Saturday, the filly who was born with odd front legs and an unusually shaped figure is the hot favourite to win the group 1 Blue Diamond Stakes, the most important juvenile race in Victoria.
Fontiton was just one of well over 1000 entries for the Diamond, but a little belief, luck and loads of faith have led to her appearance at Caulfield on Saturday. Blue Diamonds and Golden Slippers were a far cry in the first few weeks of life for Fontiton.
As Campbell explains, Personal Ensign's racing success - four wins from just eight starts - had not translated to her life in the breeding barn.
Personal Ensign had been served in her first four years at stud by sons of Danehill and, to put it kindly, the cross had been a disappointment.
The mare was at the crossroads. Her catalogue page profile was becoming thinner by the birth of each battling foal.
Breeding racehorses, especially on Campbell's level, requires a certain deal of ruthlessness. Like a trainer admitting a horse must be sacked, the same dynamic applies to a professional breeder.
However in 2011, Campbell decided to mate their newest stallion, Turffontein, with Personal Ensign and break away from any influence of the Danehill gene.
"I really believed in her, but the facts were the facts and she hadn't set the world on fire, so I thought I would try this cross and see how we'd go."
On September 7, a successful mating with Turffontein was achieved. A subsequent pregnancy test showed that Personal Ensign was in foal.
"We took a scan at 15 days to confirm the pregnancy and another at 30 days and again at 45 days just to make sure the pregnancy was going correctly, and it was," Campbell said.
The Inglis Bloodstock firm maintains a policy of visiting studs twice a year to monitor the growth and progress of the yearlings that will, one day, be graded to determine whether they qualify for the select sale.
"And when they came out in June of 2013, she was just a very average filly," Campbell said. "Nothing special, just one of the crowd. But when they came back in October the same year it was quite a different story.
"I knew privately that she'd just blossomed amazingly and once [Inglis] looked at her, they couldn't believe the improvement from June to October.
"She'd just gone from a very much run-of-the-mill, long filly, to an exceptional, athletic yearling that not even the toughest of judges could walk past without stopping."
Campbell put Fontiton in his draft of that year, excited but his enthusiasm was very much in check at the profile of the filly's background.
Her mother had struggled with four previous foals and she was being mated with a then second-year stallion who was still finding his feet.
"No, the family had not done much and I was the first to agree, but I've got to say, when I stood back and saw such genuine appreciation of a lovely filly, it was satisfying," Campbell said.
"Every open day and every lunch and every visitor, it seemed, ended up making positive remarks about this daughter of Turffontein.
"But she was there to be sold, she had to be sold and, yes, she had much to prove with where she was coming from."
Potential bidders assured Campbell that they had up to $65,000 to spend on the youngster.
When quizzed that such amounts barely rate a mention in these heady days of six-figure sums at yearling sales across Australia, Campbell said: "The bulk of the interest was coming not for the half-brothers and sisters but rather for the type she was, so you are basically buying a lovely, athletic filly with a family that was just going."
On sale day, Fontiton was looked at by a number of trainers keen to have the filly in their stable. "And then Robert Smerdon came to me and said that he was very taken with the filly and, as it turned out, he stuck his neck out and paid $110,000 for her," Campbell said.
"It's interesting really. Robert trained Fontein Ruby, who was also by Turffontein, and now he's got another with Fontiton."
Smerdon said that he had no problems syndicating Fontiton.
"She broke in really well and that's pretty typical of her makeup, she's very relaxed but has enormous ability," he said. "When we brought her in from the breakers, we had no great plans of an early two-year-old career."
It was decided that, prior to going to the paddock, Fontiton would be given a 800-metre jump-out at Caulfield and a float would be booked to take the filly for a well-earned rest.
But Fontiton staggered onlookers with an easy win that left no doubt she was going to be a high-class racehorse, which was confirmed when she scored effortlessly at Moonee Valley in her first race start. "I think then we knew that she was indeed what we'd hoped she would be ..." Smerdon said. "And hopefully she can carry that speed into Saturday's Blue Diamond."
Smerdon admits that the most remarkable feature about Fontiton is that her make-up and pedigree suggest she will be better at three than two. Pretty scary considering what she's already done.
And, for Campbell, Saturday could be a day where he's rewarded for his belief in a pedigree that not many others shared.
However, he is still trying to explain to his 19-year-old son Andrew why professional breeders must sell their yearlings at market.
Campbell said that the teenager declared on Cox Plate day at Moonee Valley after Fontiton had bolted in: "Dad, Fontiton has just managed to double its purchase price in under a minute. You are looking like a mug for selling her."
If Fontiton wins the Blue Diamond Stakes and perhaps then the Golden Slipper, Campbell's argument for selling his one-time angular filly will become even harder to sell to his quizzical son.
