A rethink of spring plans led Cranbourne trainer Greg Eurell to delay the return of smart three-year-old I Did It Again until Saturday's Caulfield meeting.
I Did It Again was well-backed before recording a comfortable debut win at Caulfield on July 15 and Eurell had thoughts of bringing back the son of Nicconi for a crack at the Caulfield Guineas in the spring.
I Did It Again comfortably won a trial at Cranbourne on September 4 but the gelding's manner prompted him to skip his intended first-up outing, last Saturday's Group II Danehill Stakes at Flemington.
Eurell said I Did It Again might not be the right horse for the Caulfield Guineas, which led him to start the horse's campaign in the Super VOBIS 3YO Plate (1100m) at Caulfield on Saturday.
"At this stage, where he's at in his work, he might just be a little bit too sharp for the Guineas in the sense that I just don't know if he's going to settle and relax enough to get out to a mile," Eurell said.
"I just didn't want to be putting him under the pump, straight into a Danehill and then we'd have to go to the (Caulfield Guineas) Prelude from there and do the wrong thing by the horse."
"We can always step up to the mile easy enough but I didn't want to throw him in the deep end and be heading in the wrong direction too early."
Eurell sees Saturday's sprint assignment as a good "stepping stone" to a possible campaign geared towards the Group I Coolmore Stud Stakes (1200m) at Flemington in November.
"We changed direction and we'll just keep him on a sprinting course and see how he progresses from there," Eurell said.
"The path that we may take is that if he runs well on Saturday, he'll possibly run in the Roman Consul in Sydney and if it's not that, it will be the Blue Sapphire and we're hoping he'll be good enough to run in the Coolmore.
"We gave him a bit of a break and he's not doing anything wrong but he's switched right on now and he knows exactly what he's here for."
Nikita Beriman will keep the ride on I Did It Again after piloting the horse to his Caulfield victory in July.
