Caulfield trainer Luke Oliver has his sights set on his second Flemington staying feature for the year.Oliver won the Listed Bagot Handicap (2800m) with Good Red on New Year's Day and has emerged with topweights Diamondsondinside and Elmore in Saturday's $150,000 Banjo Paterson Final (2500m)."We have set them both for this race but they have paid for their consistency a bit," Oliver said.Brad Rawiller will ride Diamondsondinside who has 58kg while Elmore has a half-kilo less and will be ridden b
Caulfield trainer Luke Oliver has his sights set on his second Flemington staying feature for the year.
Oliver won the Listed Bagot Handicap (2800m) with Good Red on New Year's Day and has emerged with topweights Diamondsondinside and Elmore in Saturday's $150,000 Banjo Paterson Final (2500m).
"We have set them both for this race but they have paid for their consistency a bit," Oliver said.
Brad Rawiller will ride Diamondsondinside who has 58kg while Elmore has a half-kilo less and will be ridden by the premiership-hungry Damien Oliver.
Luke Oliver said that being a proven stayer Elmore may have an edge on Diamondsondinside who was on trial at 2500 metres.
He said Diamondsondinside was also disadvantaged with the outside barrier in the capacity field of 16.
"With 58kg and that gate it is going to make it extremely hard for Diamondsondinside, especially as he is probably a little bit of a question mark at the distance," Oliver said.
Diamondsondinside's only win in seven starts this campaign was over 1600 metres at Moonee Valley in April.
Last Saturday he finished fourth to Pacino in the Victoria Plate (2000m) at Flemington after a modest seventh to Nuclear Sky over 2400 metres at Rosehill.
Elmore heads to Flemington after he scored a narrow but impressive win over 2282 metres at Morphettville last Saturday.
It was his second win this campaign after beating Butwaittheresmore and Prince Vitality in a heat of the Banjo Paterson series over 2600m at Flemington three starts ago.
"Elmore is going great," Oliver said.
"He is meeting a lot of these horses worse off at the weights but he will stay all day and from his barrier (seven) should get a really good run.
"We took him to Adelaide because I wanted to mix up his preparation a little bit and have him fresh and in winning form.
"He was really strong to the line last week and being a big strong horse the 57.5kg probably shouldn't worry him too much on Saturday."
Oliver is level with Craig Williams on 65 wins in the Melbourne jockeys' premiership and has a chance to capitalise in the Banjo Paterson after Williams' mount Butwaittheresmore was scratched on Friday after knocking a leg.
"It's very disappointing because it's the race we'd aimed him at," trainer Mike Moroney said.
"He had the conditions and the weight to suit."