Renner was disgusted that his friends had all deserted him and, deeply incensed at their ill-mannered ways, he went home.

"They left me high and dry. I'm sitting there looking down at my pot of beer and not one of them even turned up. And now I think back, I'm bloody glad they didn't," Renner said.

Renner went home and logged on to his computer and was soon streaming the Magic Millions sales from Perth of that year into his dining room.

It was the third day of the horse auction and it is widely known as the weakest day of the sales when looking for a horse of the future.

"I'm staring a the bloody screen still thinking about being left on my own and I look closely and think 'shit that's the nicest horse I've ever seen'," he said. "I look at his pedigree, he's by Blackfriars out of a good mare, and it's in this terrible little sale.

"The horse comes into the ring and within minutes he's passed in for just $16,000. I ring a mate of mine who I know is at the sale and tell them there's a cracking yearling I want to buy but go and check its front legs.

"My mate rings back and says the legs are fine but the owner won't budge on selling it under $20,000. So I tell him 'get me his phone number'. Within a couple of days I've told him 'I want the horse'. And he says 'not under $20,000 and I said 'mate where do you live? I'll send out the cheque'," he said.

At Caulfield on Saturday that $20,000 investment has now reaped $2.7 million in prizemoney and could well have that figure doubled in the next six weeks.

Renner's Black Heart Bart has taken Australian racing by storm since it landed here early this year.

Renner explains that in 2015, Black Heart Bart won the Bunbury Stakes by five lengths, running an extraordinary time for the 1200m that nearly broke the 30-year record held by WA legend Heron Bridge.

Even former Geelong captain and now Western Australian horse trainer Mark Bairstow told the connections on seeing Black Heart Bart win that the horse should be on the east coast winning major races.

But Renner was always a step ahead. That day the builder decided that the horse should be sent in search of a Cox Plate, an ambition many said was bordering on delusional.

In four weeks' time Renner may have proved many wrong with his lofty expectations of the horse.

"I knew that day at Bunbury I had something bloody special and I also knew he had to go to the east. But then I also knew that I would have to convince my part owners and friends basically, by prodding and pushing them to come around to my way of thinking.

"Going east was the only logical way the horse could realise his talent. So I rang a few of these leading trainers and they kept saying things to me like 'well if you happen to sell the horse while it's under my care I'm keeping five or 10 per cent of the purchase fee'."

"I thought, 'shit they've got to be kidding haven't they?' So I rang Darren Weir and said to him 'you don't put up with this nonsense of demanding five or 10 per cent do you?' and he replied 'no, just send me the horse, I'll send you a bill and then you send me a cheque and that's all we've got to worry about'.

"And I don't think he's ever stopped smiling since Bart arrived at his stable," he said.

Renner, who syndicated the horse with a few close friends, is adamant that the six-year-old can cope with the calibre of horse such as Winx when they clash at Moonee Valley next month.

"Winx is pretty good, so's Hartnell, and they say a couple of foreigners might go all right, but i'll back Bart around the Valley any day," he said.

Renner, 57, admitted he felt more like 67 as the Underwood Stakes celebrations went well into the night.

But he will return to the Caulfield Stakes on Saturday week and then a fortnight later for the Cox Plate.

And, should the horse win, those trophies will be very much on display at the same hotel where Renner was left friendless all those years ago.