Entirely Platinum has been backed into 2015 Memsie Stakes odds of $10 and co-trainer Wayne Hawkes is confident that the talented galloper will be tough to beat in the Group 1 event if he can reproduce his first-up effort from the autumn.

Entirely Platinum finished second behind Dissident in the 2015 Orr Stakes. Photo by: Adrienne Bicknell

Entirely Platinum started his 2015 Melbourne Festival Of Racing campaign with a second place finish behind Dissident in the Group 1 Orr Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield on February 14 and Hawkes told Racing Ahead that a similar performance would likely be good enough to win the Group 1 Memsie Stakes over the same track and distance this weekend.

“He has done well,” Hawkes said.

“He ran in the autumn at the same bat time on the same bat channel against Dissident in the CF Orr and luckily Dissident is gone.

“Our bloke is very,very good and if he can bring his CF Orr form to Saturday then he is going to be pretty hard to beat.

“He has done super well and he goes really well fresh over the 1400.

“It is a good race for him.”

Entirely Platinum took up the running when he finished second in the Orr Stakes, but Hawkes said that the Pentire gelding is not a one trick pony and could take a sit in the early stages of the Memsie Stakes.

Hawkes said that will leave the riding instructions up to jockey Dwayne Dunn and he is confident that the leading hoop will assess the early pace in the Memsie Stakes before he puts the six-year-old in the right position.

“He is put down as a leader by everyone, but he doesn’t have to be a leader and if there is no pace then he can roll to the front and do what he has to do,” Hawkes said.

“He is an on-pace run and it really depends on how cleanly to jump out of the barriers and then Dwayne will sort it out from there with the pace of the race. “

Team Hawkes were confident that Entirely Platinum would be able to stretch out to 2400 metres and he was set for the Group 1 Caulfield Cup (2400m) last spring, but he failed to run out the trip in the Listed Mornington Cup (2400m) in the autumn and Hawkes said that the stable may keep the gelding to shorter trips during the 2015 Spring Racing Carnival; with the Group 1 Epsom Handicap (1600m) at Royal Randwick on October 3 and the Group 1 Emirates Stakes (1600m) at Flemington on November 7.

“We always thought that he was a Caulfield Cup horse, but every time when we went to run him over a trip it would never work,” Hawkes said.

“We are just not sure whether we will keep him to a mile this time and we might end up in a race like the Emirates.

“We are not really sure and we just want to see how he goes there, but he could run in an Epsom Handicap and that sort of stuff.

“There certainly are some options for him.”

Entirely Platinum is now into 2015 Memsie Stakes odds of $10 with Ladbrokes and he is on the fifth line of betting behind Boban ($5), Volkstok’n’barrell ($8), Weary ($9) and Hi World ($9).