Matt Laurie has sights set on Blue Diamond Stakes

Trainer Matt Laurie has had to rethink the starting point for the autumn program of his two-year-old Coleman after a setback brought on by a virus.

The Group 1 Blue Diamond Stakes (1200m) at Caulfield on February 24 remains firmly in Laurie’s mind, but the son of Pierata is likely to have a delayed start to his campaign.

Coleman made an impression winning on debut at Caulfield in the spring, with runner-up Arabian Summer going on to be successful at Ballarat and the Gold Coast subsequently.

Laurie had pencilled in the Group 3 Chairman’s Stakes (1000m) at Caulfield on February 3 as Coleman’s return, but instead the trainer in looking at the Group 3 Blue Diamond Prelude (1100m) at Caulfield a week later.

A potential jump-out last week was postponed because of the virus, but the colt had a jump-out over 800m on the new Heath track at Caulfield on Tuesday, pleasing both the trainer and rider Ben Melham.

“He had a nice trail behind a horse from the Freedman yard (Tonkin) that probably had a bit more fitness than we do at this stage,” Laurie said.

“We had the earmuffs on him just to get him to relax and I thought he did that well. He made nice steady ground without being chased, so I thought that was perfectly good.

“We haven’t had as smooth a run into this first trial as we would have liked. He did have a bit of a setback with a virus, but he’s perfectly fine now and fully recovered.

“Our initial thoughts were to go into the Chairman’s Stakes into the Blue Diamond, but that would mean we would have to trial him again next week, so I’m leaning towards training him throughout next week and then trialling him the week after and going into the Prelude.”

Laurie said Coleman would take a lot of benefit from his trip from Mornington to Caulfield on Tuesday and getting the colt on a nice surface.

But Laurie doubted whether Coleman would return for another look at Caulfield where trials are scheduled on the Heath track on January 29.

There is Balnarring on January 31, so he could trial over there potentially,” Laurie said.

“He’s been to Caulfield before, but Balnarring is a venue he hasn’t been to before, so that might be more beneficial, somewhere new to look at.

“He was supposed to trial last week, but that didn’t work out, so there’s still a good amount of time.

“Ben said he had a good blow this morning, and we thought that would be the case, but I thought he still trialled well.”