But the gelded son of Group 1 winner Reliable Man showed his tremendous upside with a convincing 1700-metre maiden win at Geelong on Friday.

Ridden by Julius' younger sister Melissa, Up All Night broke through for his first win at start number six.

All but two of those runs have been this preparation, with the gelding showing incremental improvement at each run.

The win made up for a luckless outing during the Warrnambool carnival when he was held up for a run for the majority of the straight before he eventually finished fourth on the heavy eight.

Keen to have put that performance behind them, Melissa Julius said the gelding had 'come on leaps and bounds' this preparation.

"I'm rapt to get the win out of the way with that bloke, he's got a lot of upside and they've been very patient," she said.

"He's got a fantastic bunch of owners and obviously last start was pretty horrific - we were really disappointed after that because we had a whole lot of horse (underneath) and nowhere to go.

"To see him do that, especially the way he did it was really exciting going forward."

After coming from well back in the field at the 600-metres to hit the front early in the straight, Julius was mindful of having made her run too early.

But Up All Night showed good resilience to stave off Cotton Eye Joe from the in-form Symon Wilde stable to win by half a length.

"I just had to be mindful of where I was, back a little bit and he's a momentum horse," the 30-year-old jockey said.

"Obviously he is just going to keep stepping up in trip and once I kind of pressed the go button, I had to keep on going with it.

"When he got to the front, he got to the front a bit too quick and his ears pricked. But he's still got a lot of upside still.

"He's been a big work in progress - he just wanted to get it all over and done with."

His sire Reliable Man won Group 1s in both England and Australia, with his Australian success coming in his last start in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes (2000m) at Randwick in April 2013.

Josh and Melissa Julius will team up again on Saturday with Parisian Veil engaged in the Group 3 SA Fillies Classic at Morphettville in South Australia.

The $152,250 feature will be run over 2500m.

Parisian Veil - a 125-1 chance in early betting - is having her first start in two weeks after finishing fifth over 2050m at Wodonga in a benchmark 58.

READ MORE: Josh Julius-trained Parisian Veil confirms ability with Benalla victory

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