Gary Portelli has warned connections of Gold Trail's Canterbury Classic rivals against letting their horses attempt to take the four-year-old on for the early lead on Thursday night.The Warwick Farm trainer says plenty of horses have come undone trying to match it out of the gates with Gold Trail who is aiming for his third consecutive victory in the 1100-metre Listed race."There's been heaps of horses who think they go quick but they try and take this fella on and they will come unstuck," Porte

Gary Portelli has warned connections of Gold Trail's Canterbury Classic rivals against letting their horses attempt to take the four-year-old on for the early lead on Thursday night.

The Warwick Farm trainer says plenty of horses have come undone trying to match it out of the gates with Gold Trail who is aiming for his third consecutive victory in the 1100-metre Listed race.

"There's been heaps of horses who think they go quick but they try and take this fella on and they will come unstuck," Portelli said.

"It would be a mistake for horses like Goldam to take him on."

Gold Trail has benefited in his last couple of starts from two perfect frontrunning rides by Chris Munce but the hoop will miss the ride at Canterbury due to a careless riding suspension.

Ironically, the ban was incurred after his winning ride on Gold Trail at Rosehill on January 17.

Portelli was worried about finding a replacement who could measure up to Munce but his prayers were answered by Sydney's premiership leader Corey Brown.

"When you've got a horse with 53kg it's often hard to get a jockey who can ride at the weight let alone a topliner like Corey, so I'm very happy to have him," Portelli said.

"Corey's been behind him a couple of times and has seen the way he races.

"He would have had a couple of looks at the tapes of Gold Trail's last couple of runs where Chris has produced a couple of master-class rides for Corey to watch."

The Canterbury Classic features a small but classy field of eight which includes the Peter Snowden-trained Desuetude and David Payne's stakeswinning stablemates Hurried Choice and Hairy.

"I don't think he's out of this race by any means, he's a horse who takes a few runs to get fit and once he does he holds that form and they'll know he's in this race," Portelli said.

"I've got a lot of respect for Desuetude but in saying that it's all three-year-old form and when you step up against older horses they need to go up to another level again.

"Horses like Hairy are in great form and Hurried Choice is a Group winner and as tough as anything, so they will be just as hard to beat."

Hairy comes into the race after a barnstorming victory in the Listed Carrington Stakes (1100m) at Randwick on New Year's Day while Hurried Choice is racing for the first time since being unplaced in the Group Two International Sprint at Caulfield in October.

Desuetude won his first three starts including the Group Three Run To The Rose and was spelled after his close third to Duporth in the $1 million Golden Rose in August.