Diamond Ready To Sparkle Sylvester Kirk is hoping lightning can strike twice with Sri Diamond in the Betdirect Winter Derby at Lingfield on Saturday.The lightly-raced seven-year-old beat Grand Passion by half a length 12 months ago under a great ride from Jamie Spencer and Kirk is hoping for the same result again.He was upped in trip afterwards to take on the likes of Mubtaker and Sergeant Cecil in the John Porter Stakes.Although Kirk blames himself for that below-par run, he bounced back to form when beating Millville at Lingfield back in January.'He's in good form and we're looking forward to it. We got held up with him a little bit last week, but we are back in line again now,' said Kirk.'I ran him over the wrong trip in too hard a race at Newbury. There has been nothing wrong with him, but we just feel that he is better on the all-weather and we put him away to see if we could do the same thing again.'There are nice prizes to win (on the all-weather) and there is a chance he could go off to America after this if everything goes well.'We were thinking about Dubai, but we were a bit worried about the surface out there so we decided to stick to the Winter Derby and that has been the plan all along.'Jamie Spencer will not ride him as I think he is going to be on Alfie Flits. Declan McDonagh will ride and he has been lucky for us in the past.'(C) PA Sport
