Brian McKnight will be on course to see talented but headstrong galloper Le Remas race for only the second time in his career when he runs at Caulfield on Saturday.McKnight, who has a team of 15 horses in work at Maldon in central Victoria, said a knee replacement operation which became infected with golden staph had curtailed his activities."The last 12 months hasn't been good. It wiped me out for a while but things are on the improve," McKnight said.The trainer was on hand to see Le Remas race

Brian McKnight will be on course to see talented but headstrong galloper Le Remas race for only the second time in his career when he runs at Caulfield on Saturday.

McKnight, who has a team of 15 horses in work at Maldon in central Victoria, said a knee replacement operation which became infected with golden staph had curtailed his activities.

"The last 12 months hasn't been good. It wiped me out for a while but things are on the improve," McKnight said.

The trainer was on hand to see Le Remas race for the first time when the four-year-old landed his first metropolitan success over 1000m at Sandown midweek when he resumed on April 18.

McKnight races Le Remus with Gisborne-based Debbie Ryan who bred the horse from her unraced Zabeel mare Tylden Lady who is a sister to the dam of Group One Queensland Derby winner Shootoff.

The gelding has had 11 starts for four wins and three second placings.

He was balloted out of the Listed Wangoom Hcp (1200m) at Warrnambool on May 2 but gained a start as second emergency in Saturday's Manfred Phillipps Hcp (1100m) after the scratchings of Spacecraft and Verdasco.

"This will be a good test for him and he'll acquit himself pretty well," McKnight said.

Horsham-based jockey Christine Puls has ridden Le Remas at his past nine starts and takes the mount again on Saturday.

She has been regularly making the two hour trip to McKnight's Maldon property or the 1-1/2 hour treck to Avoca to ride Le Remas and stablemates in work outs but believes it is worth it.

Le Remas has drawn barrier two but Puls said she would have preferred the horse to have drawn out.

"He's probably the nicest horse I've been allowed to stay on," Puls said.

"He's not the easiest horse to ride. He's not a push button horse.

"There are a lot of things he can do wrong. His barrier manners are not good and he can pull extremely hard in a race.

"Drawn two, he can be a handful and can be slow away. You don't want that sort of gate do you?

"He's quite an exciting horse but he's got a lot of maturing to do."

Puls, who has ridden three metropolitan winners in Victoria and several others in Adelaide, has been aboard Le Remas for all of his placings including his wins at Echuca, Bendigo, Ballarat and Sandown.

"Hopefully over the 1100 metres tomorrow we can be a little handier and luck goes our way," she said.

Le Remas is at $15 with TAB Sportsbet which has the Mick Price-trained Stratcombe favourite at $3.