Martyn Meade eyes Gordon Stakes at Qatar Goodwood Festival as St Leger warm-up for Technician

The three-year-old grey son of Mastercraftsman won the Listed Prix Ridgway at Longchamp earlier this month. Now the Group 3 Gordon Stakes – over 11 furlongs – on August 1 is seen as the ideal stepping stone to the Classic at Doncaster in September. Technician’s trainer Martyn Meade said: ‘I don’t think the Leger will be too far by the time we get to then. ‘Hopefully he’ll have had a couple of runs over a mile-and-a-half by then. ‘That is certainly a nice one to aim at. ‘The ultimate aim is Doncaster, so Goodwood might work well time-wise. ‘We want to pick some nice races for him.’ Technician was seventh in his debut maiden last season before getting off the mark first time out this year in a novice contest at Leicester. He followed that with second behind Bangkok in the Group 3 bet365 Classic Trial at Sandown in April. However, he disappointed badly in a Derby trial – the Group 3 Chester Vase – a fortnight later. That run came at a time when trainer Meade’s horses were badly out of form. Shortly afterwards, the Wiltshire trainer closed his stable for a month. But now his string, including Technician, appear to be firing on all cylinders again. Meade added: ‘Technician was in a similar situation to Advertise with what happened at Chester. ‘We can just forget about that race. He came out of Longchamp bouncing. ‘I don’t want to over-run him. I haven’t got an absolute plan but we’ll think about running him in the next couple of weeks or so. ‘He ran well enough over 10 furlongs but ultimately we want to think about pushing him up in distance all the time.’