relations access for new records

Hello,

I have a model with an database field foo_id and a relation 'foo'.

If i set foo_id, i expect to be able to access the corresponding "foo" via model->foo; this won't work unless the model is saved or loaded from the database.

Is there any rationale behind that?

Yes, it would be really helpful if one could access BELONGS_TO relations before a new record is saved.