MILLI IS AN UP AND COMER

Danny O’Brien’s Manifest The Milli won the second heat of the Sportsbet Up and Coming Stars Series at Ballarat on Tuesday, beating long-time maiden Unriddle to claim the $41,250 prize.

With a modest field of four-year-old and overs contesting the $75,000 maiden - albeit one with plenty of honest customers - eight-start maiden Manifest The Milli entered the race off a spell and jumped a $3.90 favourite.

The Rory Hunter-trained Unriddle hit the front again en-route to his 11th placing in 23 starts for his current stable, but was swallowed up late as O’Brien’s gelding built through his revs and ran out a comfortable winner.

Jordan Childs gave Manifest The Milli a perfect ride from midfield, and expects his mount to improve up in distance as he goes up in class.

“He’d been jumping out well leading into today so we were quite confident he’d run a really good race,” Childs said.

“I just wanted to ride him where he was happy. Obviously this might be a bit short of his best distance, but I didn’t want to be too far away from the barrier.

“We just had to wait for a bit of a path through, and then once he got through he really started to attack the line.”

Heat 3 of the series is a $100k, 1300m 3YO+ Maiden tomorrow at Sandown, with unlucky but talented galloper Ten Warriors the current $4 favourite.

Story by Darcy Cosgriff for Racing.com

Pic by Racing Photos