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By Ray Hickson

Trainer Mick Price doesn’t have any plans to back Amenable up in Saturday’s Doncaster Mile but he’s prepared to allow the enigmatic gelding to make the case to change his mind at Rosehill on Tuesday.

Trainer Mick Price (Pic: Grant Guy)

Chief in Price’s sights is for Amenable to break a drought that stretches back to August 2023 in the Group 3 $250,000 Racing And Sports Doncaster Prelude (1500m) with the winner exempt from ballot for Saturday's $4m race.

The five-year-old has 52.5kg in the Doncaster Mile and is on the borderline for a start in the Group 1.

“He’s not a back up horse, I’ve never thought of him as a back up horse and it’s not part of my plan,’’ Price said.

“If the owners wanted to do so I suppose I might but I wasn’t intending to. He’d need to win which is not something he does often.”

Amenable, $5.50 with TAB on Monday, will be second-up following a fast-finishing second behind Sandpaper in the Newcastle Stakes (1400m) almost four weeks ago.

Price, who co-trains with Michael Kent Jnr, said the gelding is well placed in the Prelude given aside from last preparation when he was second-up in the Alan Brown Stakes off the outside gate his past three second-up attempts have been in Group 1 company.

Since that last win in 2023, he’s been Group 1 placed behind Magic Time in last year’s All Aged Stakes and notched several other stakes placings but Price wants to see him put one away.

“It is a good chance, he has had a few good chances and this is one of them,’’ he said.

“Hopefully he can do something different and win, he has only won two out of 19.

“He’s there to run very well, he’s had a good first-up run and he’s training on. He’s thriving, I’ve got no query on him but’s like I said he’s just got to do something different and win.

“If he won with his head on his chest I would check his papers.”

Imported Yulong mare Sakti has her first run for Price & Kent Jnr in the Group 2 $300,000 Cincotta Chemist Emancipation Stakes (1500m) and it’s a run Price said will tell him a lot about the new addition.

Sakti has won two of her nine starts with both wins coming on synthetic tracks but she has four second placings on soft tracks in the UK.

“She’s a lovely mare, we think she will handle the ground,’’ he said.

“We’re aiming to balance up from that wide gate and work home, and see that she looks good working home.

“Coming out of quarantine our expectation is not that she goes and wins but we see her working home and move on from there.”

Amenable runs second at Newcastle on March 7

Mick Price on Hezashocka (race 4): “He’ll love the ground and give a bit of cheek but 2400m on a soft track is his little sweet spot. He’s a very good wet tracker so he might show up a bit.”

On Warmonger (race 8): “He’s going well and coming off a good run so I’m happy with him. The wet track puts him thereabouts.”

All the fields, form and replays for Stakes day at Rosehill