Leading Melbourne trainer Peter Moody has made his mark in the first Sydney two-year-old race of the 2012-2013 season with pint-sized filly Brilliant Bisc upstaging her more-fancied rivals.

The Gai Waterhouse-trained Sugar Rush was sent out the $1.55 favourite based on her strong barrier trial form but she didn’t bring that to the races and finished a well-beaten sixth.

Brilliant Bisc was unwanted in betting, opening at $18 before drifting to start at $41.

But after bouncing to the front from her good draw she was never seriously threatened to score by 1-1/4 lengths over Darley filly Guelph ($5.50) with the favourite’s stablemate Shahad ($8) 1-3/4 lengths away third.

Winning jockey Josh Parr was thrilled with the result but was relieved to fulfill his engagement.

Parr travelled to Randwick from the Central Coast and bushfires in that region closed the main road to Sydney, forcing the jockey to find an alternate route.

“I dead-set got here 25 minutes ago,” Parr said as he weighed in.

“That was brilliant. She’s taken major improvement from her trial to today.

“I spoke to Pete this morning and we both agreed her best asset was her speed and when she drew so soft we would have been mad not to use it.”

Most of the credit for Brilliant Bisc’s victory rests with Moody’s Sydney representative Claire Cunningham.

She has overseen all the filly’s work in Sydney and was chuffed with Saturday’s result.

“She’s always done everything right for us but she’s only small and her opponents had shown so much ability,” Cunningham said.

“The barrier draw (two) was on our side and that gave us a bit of confidence.”

Guelph hit the line strongly for second and jockey Kerrin McEvoy said she just got a bit lost.

“It was a good effort. She was left out in the middle of the track on her own,” he said.