He may be a small package but he sure packs a punch.

Brighton, the little guy with the big attitude, showed he has a heart to match his spirit when he out-toughed class mare Capella in a desperate finish to the Pukekohe Dental sponsored rating 85 1400 metre contest at Ellerslie.

A stakes winner as a two-year-old on the course, Brighton had been mixing his form of late but put that aside with a performance that may have earned him a start at Group One level for his next assignment.

“He’s not very big, he’s only 14.3 (hands) but he thinks he’s 16.3,” noted trainer Nigel Tiley after the race.

“He’s got a great heart and he deserved to win that.”

Tiley hasn’t been afraid to tackle elite company with the Buffalo Man gelding and has plans for a sneak attack on the Gr. 1 Sistema Railway at Ellerslie on New Year’s Day.

“I had a gut feeling I should put him in the Railway, which I have done,” he said.

“He would get in pretty well weighted and the way the Railway is run, it’s a real pressure race, a horse like him could get them from the back.

“That’s a good field today so he’s done us proud.”

Capella started favourite in the contest after some inspired support saw her backed in to $3 on the TAB Fixed Odds market. The Rip Van Winkle mare was having her first start since disappointing in the Gr. 1 Windsor Park Plate back in September and only went down by a nose after a titanic struggle with the winner. The return to form will delight her connections as the big summer stakes races loom over the next two months.