Robert Heathcote's winter plans have suffered a setback with a career-threatening injury to star sprinter Buffering.

While Buffering is out for at least three months, Heathcote is turning his immediate focus to Dream Of Slips.

Formerly trained in Victoria, Dream Of Slips has won five of his seven starts for Heathcote who opted to put him in Saturday's SRT Handicap instead of waiting another week.

"When he drew barrier two on Saturday we elected to go there and get his weight down with Bridget Grylls' two-kilogram claim," Heathcote said.

"He has had a trial and has won first-up and I would expect him to go well on Saturday."

Heathcote is hoping Dream of Slips can measure up to some of the Listed sprint races during the winter.

One of his main rivals is the improving He Don't Care, a winner at the Sunshine Coast two weeks ago.

It was his third win from four starts and wet weather in Brisbane this week will be in his favour.

He Don't Care is trained by Ray McCall, the father of Stradbroke Handicap-winning trainer Natalie McCall.

Meanwhile, Gold Coast trainer Bruce Hill's gamble to buy three yearlings by then relatively unknown European sire Lope De Vega could prove a winner on Saturday.

Hill will saddle up Lope De Vega's son Man Of His Word in the Mater Dei P & F Handicap (1350m).

Man Of His Word raced greenly when third on debut three weeks ago.

"He won a trial and we planned to run him first-up over 1350 metres but the meeting was washed out," Hill said.

"We had no choice but to run him at 1100 (metres) and it was too short."

Lope De Vega had 25 first-crop winners in Europe last year including four at Group level.

His offspring includes the Group One Dewhurst Stakes winner Belardo who was Europe's top-rated colt of 2014.