A pleasing midweek hitout alongside Karuta Queen has topped off Diamond To Pegasus for his race return, but trainer Tony Sergi says Sydney’s wet weather is a genuine unknown for the stakeswinning youngster.
Diamond To Pegasus rounded off his preparations for Saturday’s Rosebud Preview (1100m) at Warwick Farm with a course proper gallop at Queanbeyan on Tuesday and Sergi can’t fault the Canonbury Stakes winner.
However, a wet surface awaits after rain forced the cancellation of Wednesday’s meeting at Canterbury and Thursday’s Gosford fixture.
“I don’t know,” was Sergi’s frank assessment on how Diamond To Pegasus might handle the conditions expected on Saturday.
“I’ve never had him on a heavy track before. When he galloped here the other morning it was raining and he handled that quite well, but I don’t know.
“He could be a duffer.
“I guess the good thing is that he’s in an early race (race two) and you’ve got to try him just to see how he goes.
“He might be another With Ice.”
With Ice was a noted mudlark trained by Sergi, winning 10 of her 49 starts including five on a heavy track and two on slow going before her retirement earlier this year.
Diamond To Pegasus and the Neville Layt-trained Magic Millions winner Karuta Queen clocked 34 seconds for their final 600m on Tuesday morning with a last 200m in 11.1s.
“They were working together, Karuta Queen is a good horse so you’ve got to be going good to go with it. She did just beat us but not by much and he did all we wanted him to do,” Sergi said.
The Queanbeyan-based trainer has set his sights on two early-season stakes races next month with Diamond To Pegasus who hasn’t raced since his close fourth in the Group Three Skyline Stakes (1200m) at Warwick Farm on March 12.
“He’ll probably go to the (Listed) Rosebud after this but if for some reason something goes wrong then we’ve still got the San Domenico Stakes up our sleeve three weeks after Saturday’s race,” Sergi said.
“The plan is to also run him in the Up And Coming Stakes over 1300 metres.
“They (Rosebud on August 6 and Up And Coming Stakes on August 20) are the two races we’ve really targeted.”
Diamond To Pegasus came up with barrier five in a final field of 12 which pleased Sergi.
“I was saying to someone this morning that I’d like to draw between two and five so it’s worked out quite well,” he said.
AAP TURF
