Racing: Fading king gets nod over heir to the throne

Todd Mitchell

Todd Mitchell has chosen the past over the future at Addington tomorrow.

The Cambridge horseman will drive dual New Zealand Cup winner Just An Excuse in the $100,000 New Zealand Free-For-All over the horse he sees as the heir to the king's throne, Baileys Dream.

While that may look an easy choice at first glance Mitchell has long believed there is very little between the pair at their best, saying the four-year-old Baileys Dream could be the best horse he has driven.

Tomorrow they clash for the first - and almost certainly only - time in their careers as Baileys Dream steps up to open class.

After having been the equal of Tuesday's New Zealand Cup heroine Mainland Banner in the last eight months, Baileys Dream could be expected to make a splash in his open-class debut.

But his chances have been dampened by drawing the outside of the front line in the 2000m group one event.

And he hardly had an ideal lead-up to the race with a disappointing third as a red-hot favourite in the free-for-all on Tuesday.

"I think he needed that run because he was going to win at the top of the straight but just blew out," said Mitchell.

"Steven (Reid, trainer) is going to use this race to gauge where he stands as an open-class horse but it is going to be hard to do that from the outside of the front.

"He will have to go back at the start and will need a lot of luck to win. But if he has improved with Tuesday's run, he can do it. He is that good."

Baileys Dream is likely to be driven by Reid's stable foreman Brendon Hill, who has handled him before when Mitchell was unavailable.

Mitchell won't be worrying about Baileys Dream's fortunes though as he has the perfect chance to grab some consolation with Just An Excuse after drawing barrier four.

Mitchell was far from disappointed by Just An Excuse's having to bow to the mares in Tuesday's cup.

"He went great but they went too slow for him early on.

"I would have liked to have seen some more attacking mid-race but I think he went as good as any of them, apart from the winner."

Just An Excuse sat parked to win last season's NZ Free-For-All and Mitchell says having to adopt repeat tactics tomorrow wouldn't bother him. "I'd love to get him to the front but if we have to sit parked I can control the race."

Just An Excuse is expected to be around the $3 mark on the fixed odds, although Alta Serena, London Legend and Napoleon will all have supporters after luckless first-day efforts.


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TAB bookies are shaking their heads at the great escape after Tuesday's New Zealand Cup meeting.

Cup winner Mainland Banner was a disaster for them while hot favourites Pay Me Christian, Genius, Classic Cullen and Dudinkas Cullen all bolted in.

That should have left the bookies with only small change in their settling account but remarkably they still won on the day.

"There were a lot of big multi bets which lost because of horses like Tilt Ya Kilt, Baileys Dream and Albert Patron," said TAB bookie Paul Lally.

"So what could have been a disaster actually netted a small profit."

Also smiling were Addington officials after the biggest crowd in over a decade and a large turnover increase. The crowd was listed at 27,000 but a figure around 24,000 is more realistic. But that is still a huge increase on recent years.

Turnover confirmed that with both the on and off-course budgets exceeded.