After pulling off one of the upsets of the spring carnival by beating Bauer in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Flemington, Ironstein could be set for a jump in class next year.

The six year old has been a constant feature throughout 2011 and hasn’t enjoyed a decent spell since the second half of last year.

In that time he’s risen from a Benchmark 85 over 1400m to become a real heavyweight on the provincial cup’s circuit.

He’s also spending more and more time at black type level in the city as well, even winning the Tattersall’s Cup in Brisbane during the winter carnival.

It was his last start win though that has shown trainer Gerald Ryan this horse has the ability to not just run consistently with the top horses, he can also beat them.

With that in mind after enjoying a well deserved break the 2012 Sydney Cup and 2012 Brisbane Cup are both options in the autumn and winter respectively.

“He is up at John’s (John Singleton’s) farm and we will talk this week about which way we want to go,” Ryan said.

“If we decide to target the Sydney Cup then he will need to come back into work very soon.

“The other option is to give him a longer break and set him for the Brisbane Cup in June.”

The horse does seem to thrive in Queensland and in addition to his Tattersall’s Cup win this year he also placed fourth in the Brisbane Cup behind 2011 Melbourne Cup runner Tullamore.

In 2010 he also prevailed up north winning the Listed Caloundra Cup ahead of 2011 Sydney Cup starter Tinseltown.

Ironstein has had 33 career starts for seven victories and well over half a million dollars in prize money.