19-time Group 1 winning rider Mark Zahra has been booked to ride star South Australian sprinter Gytrash when he resumes in the $1m Group 1 Lightning Stakes (1000m) at Flemington on February 19.
Gytrash hasn’t raced since running down the track in the $1m Classique Legend Stakes behind Eduardo at Rosehill back in October.
Co-trainer Gordon Richards said Gytrash will jump out at Morphettville tomorrow (Tuesday) before stepping up his Lightning preparation with a Gawler trial next Thursday.
“We'll find out more when he has a couple of decent hit-outs,’’ Richards said.
“After the jump out and trial there will be nowhere to hide, but’s he’s going well,’’ he said.
Richards said they were looking forward to the return of Gytrash and hopefully a change in stable fortunes after a lean couple of months.
The stable has had just eight winners in season 2021-22 but Richards said it was case of refreshing the stable with a host of young horses coming through the system.
“We’ve been very quiet,’’ Richards said.
“We’ve got a lot of young ones coming through, it’s the swings and roundabouts of racing,’’ he said.
And it shapes as another busy period as they search for a future star during sale season.
“I was going to go to Sydney, but I’ll go to the Melbourne (Inglis Premier) sale and then on to Tasmania for the Magic Millions,’’ Richards said.
“We were thinking of going to the sale in Perth but that can’t happen now, so we will concentrate on the other sales and then back here in Adelaide,’’ he said.
