The favourite for the Sydney jockeys title luckily escaped any injury after Californian Man veered sharply off the track when trying to gun down leader and eventual winner Cisco Kid in the second race on Wednesday.

Bowman had just pulled the whip through into his right hand and gave the Matthew Smith-trained horse a slap when it reacted badly inside the final 200 metres.

Bowman managed to stay up long enough to be just out of the way of the trailing field's widest runner before tumbling to the turf. He walked back to the mounting yard unscathed.

"He didn't give much indication he was going to do what he did," Bowman told stewards. "By the time I was using the whip, I went from I was going to win easy to realistically struggling to get within half-a-length of the leader.

"[I thought] if I can give him a hit that's effective it might be my best chance, but he wasn't too keen on it."

Californian Man showed a similar tendency in his previous start at Kembla Grange, but Scott Pollard managed to stay on board.

Smith had told Bowman it might be better not to use the whip in his right hand, which prompted chairman of stewards Ray Livingstone to question why the rider had pulled it through from his left earlier in the straight.

"I can hit them harder with my right hand," Bowman replied. "I pulled off the back of the winner expecting to stride up to them like a track gallop, but as soon as I required a bit of effort he felt like [there was nothing there]."

Stewards opted against making Calfornian Man undergo a battery of trials, but the three-year-old will be forced to satisfactorily trial once under pressure before being allowed to race again.

"He's never given us any indication until he shifted ground abruptly the other day," Smith said. "I said to Hugh it may be better not to use stick in the right [hand] and I think we might try blinkers on him."

Meanwhile, Chris Waller's flourishing end to the two-year-old season continued at Canterbury after Jim Cassidy ran his rivals into the ground on the well-backed Feast For Eyes in the opener.

Waller scratched Press Statement from the event to be saved for Rosehill on Saturday as he seeks more artillery to attack the group 1 JJ Atkins Stakes at Doomben on Saturday week.

"[Press Statement] would have to win well on Saturday and pull up well to go to the JJ Atkins," Waller said. "We'll definitely have one [Counterattack] and we'll just see how Press Statement goes on Saturday.

"I won't say no to this horse [Feast For Eyes in the JJ Atkins], but I think there's more to come after this prep. I thought there was ability there, but we haven't really seen it until today."

Elsewhere, group 1-winning mare Sweet Idea was the headline act fetching $1.6 million at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale on the Gold Coast on Wednesday.

Fellow stakes winner Villa Verde was sold for $1.1 million while Fix ($1.25 million) was the third million-dollar mum-to-be to go through the ring at Bundall.