Instead of taking Lighthorseman to the Caulfield Guineas on Saturday, Gary Portelli is carefully monitoring the colt's progress as he recovers from injury.The Warwick Farm trainer is now looking to the autumn with the colt who cost $900,000 as a yearling and is the most expensive horse Portelli has ever bought.He hopes to have him back in work within a few weeks."He had a big tear to his hind quarter but it looks like it has settled down nicely and I'm hoping to bring him back to the stables nex

Instead of taking Lighthorseman to the Caulfield Guineas on Saturday, Gary Portelli is carefully monitoring the colt's progress as he recovers from injury.

The Warwick Farm trainer is now looking to the autumn with the colt who cost $900,000 as a yearling and is the most expensive horse Portelli has ever bought.

He hopes to have him back in work within a few weeks.

"He had a big tear to his hind quarter but it looks like it has settled down nicely and I'm hoping to bring him back to the stables next month," Portelli said.

"I haven't got any autumn targets in mind, it's just a matter of monitoring him when he comes back and making sure that he doesn't tear the muscle again."

There was plenty of hype surrounding Lighthorseman before his debut over 1200m at Rosehill on August 2 when he started the $2.10 favourite.

Ridden by Blake Shinn, he flew out of the gates to lead for most of the race before fading in the closing stages to fifth behind the Peter Snowden-trained Desuetude, a subsequent stakes winner.

A couple of days after the race, Portelli said Lighthorseman was tight in his action and he had a chiropractor examine the colt.

The colt did most of his early work at the pre-training and agistment property Muskoka Farm at Wiseman's Ferry north-west of Sydney and did suffer shin soreness which delayed his debut.

"We don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, we need to be patient and just take it one step at a time with him," Portelli said.

Part-owner of Lighthorseman, Geoff Grimish, a Vietnam veteran who likes to name his horses after war related events, had some luck at Wyong on Thursday where stablemate Absent Friends won his second race from eight starts.