Joe Pride is adamant Eduardo still has a big-race win in him despite deciding not to run the veteran sprinter in the Group 1 Doomben 10,000.

Pride scratched Eduardo as he felt the horse mapped poorly from an outside draw and said while there was a time when he would have started him regardless, it had become more important to be discerning with the nine-year-old.

“Managing a horse getting towards the end of their career is difficult and you’ve got to start to pick the fights for them,” Pride said.

“Two years ago, I would have gone around in this and gone around again in the Kingsford Smith (Cup), but now I know he hasn’t got that toughness anymore to be backing up good run after good run.

“I believe he’s still got the good peak run in him, but he can’t produce that all the time and that’s just a product of being a bit older.

“I’ve walked into the bar and I knew this wasn’t a fight we wanted to pick.”

Eduardo is likely to be redirected towards the weight-for-age Kingsford Smith Cup (1300m) at Eagle Farm on May 27 where he will clash with up-and-coming stablemate and Think About It.

It will be his third campaign run after he was narrowly edged out by Passive Aggressive first-up in the Challenge Stakes (1000m) before finishing down the track in The Galaxy (1100m) won by the Pride-trained Mariamia.

Eduardo has been kept up to the mark with a subsequent barrier trial win and has continued to please Pride off the track.

“The horse is great. I assured the owners, I don’t want them to think I’ve lost any confidence in the horse,” Pride said.

“I’ve got him nominated for the Kingsford Smith and that might look like a better race.

“I’ve never dodged a fight with this horse. He has always taken on the best horses around, but you can’t do that forever.

“I’d love to think he could race on in the spring and maybe next autumn, but he can’t do that if I send him to every race that’s available for him.”