Mister Mysterious held on by a half neck to beat Valenteeno ($6, Tom Pay) in a thrilling fight to the line.

Reynolds said his runner has shown a preference for the larger tracks across his career and has never been one to handle the smaller tracks with grace.

But once he found the front on Sunday the Oberon trainer always felt Mister Mysterious would be able to overcome that issue.

"We went into the race thinking that if he led he would win that but the only worry about him is the tight turns, where he gets on top of himself a bit. We just had to get him around that last turn, and the other one got around him for a bit but then he fought back on the straight," he said.

"Justin just had to balance him around the last corner and once he got into the straight he was able to fight back to the front.

"He's alright on the bigger tracks ... but he has won at Penrith and it's a smaller tracks. He does tend to prefer tracks like Bathurst. He's got good gate speed so we were confident that he would be able to cross."

Burrabadine Dream and Mister Mysterious got away the strongest from gates four and five respectively.

The John Lew-trained Burrabadine Dream only held the lead for a matter of strides before Justin Reynolds asked Mister Mysterious to go on with the job and take up the running.

Mat Rue's eye-catching gelding Valenteeno wasn't going to be caught out three wide as he worked around Shes The Other One to find the death seat.

Reynolds slammed on the brakes when he found the front and took the field around for an opening quarter of 33.4 - slow enough to land the driver a $100 fine post-race.

He didn't exactly crank up the pace for the second quarter of 32.7, meaning with every stride he went unchallenged the race was turning more in his favour.

Favourite Rocky Leigh wasn't far away, parked one-out two-back and poised to strike.

Paul Jenkins had to make the move on Rocky Leigh when Shes The Other One started to fade before the home turn, trying his best to catch the leading duo of Mister Mysterious and Valenteeno.

But he couldn't match the front runners who would hit the line together in a photo finish.

Toolittletoolate ($5, Brett Hutchings) stormed home for third ahead of Jenkins' favourite.

The mile rate was 2:04.7.