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By Ray Hickson

Jockey Regan Bayliss isn’t letting a little thing like a wide gate change his belief that Fully Lit is the horse to beat in Saturday’s $2 million Inglis Millennium (1100m) at Randwick.

Regan Bayliss (Pic: Steve Hart)

And why would he when he has the Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott juggernaut, that’s dominating two-year-old racing this season, behind him.

Fully Lit added his name to the stable’s list of winners on debut at Rosehill three weeks ago when he led all the way to an almost three length win.

Bayliss said while a barrier near the outside wouldn’t have been his first choice he has confidence in the youngster to overcome it.

“I don’t think it poses a massive threat,’’ Bayliss said.

“Obviously, ideally, you’d like to be drawn a few further in toward the fence but he’s a horse with tremendous gate speed and we saw on debut he’s able to sustain pressure in the run and find off that.

“Although it’s not ideal I don’t think it’s the end of the world for him.

“You’re not so much dictated to by other runners from there, hopefully we begin well and can just cruise across and find our own rhythm.”

The debut win was Bayliss’s first ride under race conditions on the colt, $3.20 with TAB on Thursday, but he’d done plenty of groundwork leading up to the race and can get a line on how much benefit he’s taken from the run.

What impressed him the most was how he was able to cope with only getting a small amount of the race to relax before being asked to find the line, something that will come in handy in a potentially high pressure race like the Millennium.

“He didn’t find the fence until about the 800m and I only really put the bridle in his mouth for a furlong or furlong and a half,’’ Bayliss said.

“I asked him to go again and he found and what I liked about his win most was his last furlong he was drawing away from them again.

“I think he is a horse that is a little bit untapped and I think he can keep getting better.

“He’s definitely improved since that first-up run in his gallops at home. There’s no ceiling on him and as long as he continues to improve he’s not going to be too far off the top ones.”

Of course Bayliss has a good benchmark to size Fully Lit up with as he’s the regular rider of unbeaten colt Shangri La Express who is currently a $9 chance in the $5m TAB Golden Slipper.

Interestingly, Bayliss pairs with the youngster who was favourited to beat Shangri La Express when they debuted back in October when he rides The Three Hundred in the Listed $200,000 Darley Lonhro Plate (1000m).

The Three Hundred wasn’t able to match his stablemate for early speed and just battled into fifth placing but Bayliss said he’s seen positive signs since the colt has returned to Tulloch Lodge.

Fully Lit wins at Rosehill on January 20

“It might have been a bit too soon for him, he’s come back more mature and physically a lot stronger this time in,” he said.

“He’s a really nice horse, I thought he took massive improvement from his first trial going into his second trial.

“I love he’s had that prep with a run last preparation and that has him in good stead. His latest trial was against some handy horses and I think he will run really well.”

All the fields, form and replays for Saturday's Randwick meeting