El Roca and Dissident are the 2014 Doncaster Mile tips of Dominic Beirne; with the leading form analyst of the belief that the two three-year-olds represent excellent value at their current odds for the Group 1 event at Royal Randwick on Saturday.
El Roca and Dissident are the 2014 Doncaster Mile tips of former bookmaker Dominic Beirne. Photo by: Steve Hart
Three-year-olds have an excellent record in the Doncaster Mile and Beirne told RSN this morning that this year’s edition of the race is set-up to favor those horses that have got into the race on the limit weight of just 51 and a half kilograms.
“The value at the moment is the two three-year-olds,” Beirne said.
“I like backing horses that are coming back from 2000, as we saw last year with Sacred Falls and quiet a number of them in recent years, and this applies to Dissident, whose jockey was forced to go a bit too far out the other day (in the Rosehill Guineas).
“He was gone at the 300, so you have to put a pen through that run.
“El Roca, a mile looks as far as he wants to go, but with this light weight he is going to see both of the straights out with Messene.
“I think that the winner is going to come from horses right down in the weights and I think that the race is set up for them and I think that the winner is going to come from in the first half a dozen in the run.”
Team Hawkes-trained Messene has been the favourite in 2014 Doncaster Mile betting markets since he recorded a dominant three lengths win in the Group 2 Ajax Stakes (1500m) at Rosehill Gardens on March 22, but has drifted significantly in the past 48 hours.
Beirne believes that Messene would be very difficult to beat on a dry track and understands why the five-year-old has drifted in betting, with punters concerned about the heavy Royal Randwick surface, but is not ruling the son of Lonhro out as a potential Doncaster Mile tip.
“I think Messene would have been a red hot favourite on a dry track,” Beirne said.
“He has had a perfect preparation, he just keeps on winning and he has everything going for him.
“I’m not worried too much about the barrier because I think he will come across with El Roca and get a pretty good spot.
“I think that he is probably going to keep easing, but with the wet and so many accomplished wet track horses in the race, and he is not, people are going to look each other way to find the winner.
“I have Messene as a $5 favourite and I’m tipping I’ll be backing him tomorrow because I think that he is going to get out past that.”
Messene remains a narrow favourite in Doncaster Mile betting, at odds of $4.60, while Beirne’s Doncaster Mile tips El Roca ($12) and Dissident ($21) are currently available at double figure odds.
