Exciting colt Man In The Mirror got his career off to the perfect start thanks to a professional-looking debut success at Warwick Farm.
The juvenile co-owned by Phoenix Thoroughbreds and Fung Family Investments had shown plenty of talent in a pair of trials and translated that to race day. A striking son of Not A Single Doubt, he was well backed to get off the mark at the first time of asking but didn’t have things go all his own way.
Drawn in barrier one, he broke on terms and once in stride, he moved like a classy animal, travelling strongly on the heels of the leaders. Turning for the home, there looked a real danger Annabel Neasham‘s charge would be stuck in a pocket and that manifested itself with a furlong and a half to go. Unfazed by his predicament, jockey Tommy Berry expertly extracted his mount from the pocket, rounded the leaders and Man In The Mirror powered home.
“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t relieved) particularly when you know he’s a nice colt and you just want him to deliver for connections,” Neasham said. “He was still green. It’s funny they can look so professional at the trials, and you bring them to the races and it does show they are having their first start sometimes. He was having a bit of a look around, but he got there in the end.
“He’s going to get better over a little bit more ground. The 1000m today was certainly as short as we wanted to go. “He’s an absolute beauty of a colt and hopefully, he can go onto bigger and better things in the Autumn.”
Jockey Tommy Berry was equally impressed with the winning debutante.
“It was a good effort. I was a bit worried about 1000m with him because it’s well short of what his best trip is going to be, but that’s why the Winkers went onto him today,” Berry said. “In both trials, he’s been outside horses, so he wasn’t really comfortable where he was, which worried me in the run, but when I gave him a little slap coming to the corner and it was just a matter of getting out.
“Even when he got out, he still wanted to layout a little bit, but he got the job done quite comfortably and I eased him down late.
“In his jump-outs, he just had that natural ability; there was nothing that really stood out, he just oozed that little bit of class. He’s got a lot of improvement, probably more improvement than some of the 2YO winners I’ve ridden this year.”
“He’s obviously a Magic Millions horse, so they’ve got that option, but I think he could be a little bit better than that, hopefully.”