James McDonald could not have asked for a smoother lead-in to Magic Millions Raceday, collecting two comfortable victories at Randwick Kensington on Wednesday.

The champion jockey opened proceedings aboard Astronomix, a debutant trained by John O’Shea and Tom Charlton, before repeating the dose on short-priced favourite Unleeshing for Bjorn Baker.

Unleeshing was sent out a dominant $1.55 chance in the Myplates Benchmark 64 (1550m) after finishing close-up in stronger Benchmark 78 company and made light work of the drop in grade.

McDonald positioned the MyRacehorse-owned mare just behind the leaders, angled her into clear running rounding the bend and she quickly surged clear, scoring by four lengths over Shanoni ($14), with Kilkenny ($3.80) finishing third.

With Baker building towards the Magic Millions 2YO Classic with Warwoven, stable representative Luke Hilton was pleased with how Unleeshing finished the race off.

“It was an easy win,” Hilton said.

“She might even get a little bit further and hopefully she takes some confidence.”

McDonald said the mare was never under any real pressure throughout the contest.

“That was painless, she never felt like she was ever going to lose,” McDonald said.

“They just dawdled the first furlong and a half, and then obviously a little bit of pace got injected. We ended up in a good spot and away she went.”

“There’s about a million owners so I’m sure there’s uncles and sisters and brothers that are related to anyone in the horse!”

With Saturday’s Gold Coast features approaching quickly, punters are already assessing prices through major online bookmakers.

McDonald has eight rides booked at the Gold Coast on Saturday, highlighted by Knightsbridge in the Magic Millions 2YO Classic for Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, and Memo in the Magic Millions 3YO Guineas for Peter Snowden.

The post Bjorn Baker mare unleeshes to give James McDonald soft double first appeared on Just Horse Racing.