The Juvenile Championship may still be more than a month away, but Gingerbread Man has certainly stamped himself as the two-year-old to beat in that race.

Already an impressive winner at his last start, the Shamardal colt was even more convincing in last night’s $65,000 Open Class race (1200m) for two-year-olds, especially as he had bettered the much-hyped debutant Big River by three-quarter-of-a-length on the line.

Touted as Laurie Laxon’s weapon of choice to win the Group 3 Magic Millions Juvenile Championship back-to-back after Mexican Rose’s triumph last year, Big River however showed his top billing was not overstated by putting up a polished display only to be run down by a very smart horse in the concluding stages.

Third more than three lengths away was Seize The Day (Benny Woodworth), just a head in front of Blue Hedgehog (Sean Cormack), while the only disappointment was previous two-from-two winner Gustoriko (Oscar Chavez) who went down limply at the top of the straight to finish sixth.

The rest of the juveniles, who were mostly given scant regard as reflected by their long odds on the dividend board, were all simply outshone by the winner.

Winning trainer Bruce Marsh knows he holds the ace card for the Juvenile, a race he has never won in his five years of training at Kranji.

“He’s a very good two-year-old and such a lovely horse to train,” said Marsh.

“He beat a very good horse (Big River) fair and square, but I do think Laurie’s horse had a few excuses, though. He was wearing blinkers for the first time and may have overraced a little.”

But Marsh did point out that Gingerbread Man did not really owe his victory to his greater race experience.

“My bloke has run only three times here while Laurie’s horse had already four runs under his belt in New Zealand,” said Marsh.

Jockey Barend Vorster bounced Gingerbread Man out smartly from his barrier No 1, to hold the rails advantage, allowing Big River to edge forward by half-a-length but without being able to cross.

Coming to the home turn, Duric seemed to still have plenty of horse under him, but so did Vorster. Both jockeys got busy on their mounts at the 250m, but Gingerbread Man ($19) let down more powerfully to upstage the even-money favourite.

“What I like the most about this horse is his versatility,” said Vorster. “He was a lot more relaxed at the barriers, jumped a lot better and also during the race when the other horse ran next to him.

“I was just biding my time and waiting for the other horse to come back to me. I was very confident as I had plenty of horse underneath me and I know he always just does enough to win.”

Laxon on his part was not too disappointed with Big River’s first run, and remains upbeat about his future outings.

“We had only one on top of us. There were many more behind us,” he quipped.

“It was a nice debut run. He can only improve from that.”