Aggressive tactics delivered more stakes success for Hot Snitzel when the Gerald Ryan-trained three-year-old beat a star-studded Royal Sovereign Stakes field at Warwick Farm on Saturday.

“We went out to make it a fight because he’s a little horse who doesn’t know how to lie down,” Ryan said after Hot Snitzel held off the fast-finishing favourite Manawanui in the Group Two race.

Having his first start since finishing midfield behind Sepoy in the Coolmore Classic, Hot Snitzel made his own luck to enhance a first-up record Ryan believes should be unblemished.

“He’s got sensational first-up stats. I reckon he’s won four out of four but the records show only three,” Ryan said in reference to a controversial photo finish defeat in last year’s Skyline Stakes.

In a thrilling carnival entree, Hot Snitzel, a $7 to $4.80 firmer, held off Manawanui ($2.40) to win by a long head with Moment Of Change ($4) finishing a 1-3/4 length third.

Hot Snitzel was Group One-placed last year’s T J Smith Classic at Eagle Farm but Ryan believes he is training a better racehorse now.

“Last year we took him up and down the eastern seaboard and it really made him,” he said.

“He’s come up bigger and stronger and we’ll keep placing and he’ll keep running well.”

Hot Snitzel ran 1:08.99 for the 1200m, a time which gave Boasting’s 22-year track record a nudge.

Jockey Hugh Bowman said the tempo set by Blake Shinn on the boom Victorian Moment Of Change worked in Hot Snitzel’s favour.

“Blake set a pretty strong gallop and that suited us,” Bowman said.

“One of the things you know with Gerald’s horses is that they are always ready to race. You can ride them with confidence and that’s what I did with this guy.”

Celebrations in the Hot Snitzel camp were put on hold momentarily while Manawanui’s jockey Tommy Berry asked to view footage of the final 300m to determine if the winner had caused interference to his mount.

“The shift came from Moment Of Change who came out onto the winner,” Berry said.

Trainer Ron Leemon declared Manawanui on target to add to his Group One record during the autumn.

“I know this race is going to improve him three to four lengths,” Leemon said of the Golden Rose winner.

“He was going to be the most vulnerable today because I’ve had trouble keeping the weight off him.

“I don’t think they can beat us in the Hobartville (Stakes) because he’s got massive improvement.”