A long weekend and a long wait for the best bet of it, with Tried And Tired highly fancied to take out the Dillon Stakes at Sandown on Monday.

Tried And Tired came into this campaign as a progressive horse and progress he has, improving with each of his four runs this time in culminating in a peak effort when only narrowly beaten in the Chester Manifold last time.

He faces no tougher test today and again the race looks to set up ideally for him with Ollie up from the inside draw.

He should be able to track the leading pair and take over when it suits. Ideally somewhere between the 300m and the 200m mark so we can spend the last furlong patting ourselves on the back.

The key danger Reparations didn't get the tempo he would have liked last time and he should be better suited today going to 1400m but he'll do well to give Tried And Tired a start and run him down.

Both Reparations and Tried And Tired are rated 112 by Timeform but the latter is easily the most lightly raced horse in the race, comes off a peak last time, has a small but handy weight swing which tilts the ratings in his favour, and looks to get the more prominent position in running... Easy game.

For one to speck at each way odds we can track back to Saturday and have something on King Of Manners at the $11.

He was below form last time out but his best figures stack right up and we make him a 5-1 chance of bouncing back to something like his best.

THE MELBOURNE MAIL

Bet Of The Day: Sandown Race 5 #3 Tried And Tired @ $2^

Each Way Play: Moonee Valley Race 6 #2 King Of Manners @ $11