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By Ray Hickson

He’s already a Group 1 winner so class isn’t in question but trainer Mitch Freedman says he’ll find out a lot more about Attrition at Rosehill on Saturday.

Trainer Mitchell Freedman (Pic: Bradley Photos).

The Hill Stakes winner a month ago returns to Sydney chasing another big prize in the Listed $2 million Five Diamonds (1800m).

Freedman rates this race as a tougher task than the weight-for-age Hill, where he beat Kovalica and Royal Patronage, and he’ll be extending his preparation to a fifth run for the first time in his 16 start career.

“I think the horse is in great shape,’’ Freedman said.

“We haven’t been deeper than four runs into a campaign, he could continue to elevate or he could be a horse that only wants short campaigns.

“Three weeks seems to be perfect for him, it gives us the opportunity to get over the run, because he puts a lot into it, and then be able to tighten the screws back up going into his next run.

“I can’t see four weeks being an issue, but I think the Five Diamonds is a bit stronger than the Hill Stakes. He’ll need to go to that level again if not improve a bit.

“We’ll find out more on Saturday but if he does elevate again we’ll keep him in Sydney for a few days and fly out of Sydney to Perth for the Northerly.”

Attrition, $6.50 with TAB on Wednesday, had to do plenty of work to win the Hill Stakes as from the outside barrier he parked second in the run and had the job of carting the field up to the leader Royal Patronage.

It’s a different scenario this time around with the trickier 1800m start and set weights and penalties scale so Freedman is rapt to draw well in the Five Diamonds where jockey Ethan Brown will come to Sydney deputising for the suspended Beau Mertens.

“You would think five would be ideal for him and we’ll see how it pans out,’’ he said.

“From that gate with the smaller field the other day we were able to do that, we wouldn’t want to be drawing wide in this race with the bigger numbers so I’m glad we’ve drawn favourably.

“He’s an easy horse to ride, he’s very intelligent and I don’t think Ethan will have any issues there. We had to act quickly once Beau got suspended and we thought Ethan was the best possible fit.”

It was clear after the Hill Stakes that the win meant a lot to the 35-year-old trainer, not just because of the $1.1 million first prizemoney.

The entire’s part-owner Colin McKenna was ill at the time, he sadly passed away last week, and there were some public doubts whether Attrition could recapture his Toorak Handicap winning form from a year ago.

“We were really confident within our team he was going well and racing well but we hadn’t seen a win on the board with him for a while,’’ he said.

“We just thought with the travel up to Sydney for the Hill then to come back and go back again we thought the way to get him there in the best possible shape was to not run again, give him a trial and a few gallops.

Attrition wins the Hill Stakes at Rosehill on October 12

“That’s the way we’ve gone with it and we’ll see if we’re right or not. No doubt he’ll be up there and running well and hopefully the weight doesn’t stop him.”

Stablemate Ceerseven accepted for both the James Squire Handicap (1800m) at Rosehill and a race at Flemington, with Freedman to decide on Thursday whether he joins Attrition on the float.

The five-year-old won at Randwick back in February and ran third at Moonee Valley two weeks ago in a 1600m Benchmark 78 race.

All the fields, form and replays for Saturday’s Rosehill meeting