Sydneysiders have taken a real liking to South Australian sprinter Gytrash and his likable trainer Gordon Richards, who claimed another big race win at Rosehill on Saturday when taking out the $1million ATC Yes Yes Yes Stakes (1300m).
Well ridden by Jason Collett, Gytrash handled the heavy 9 conditions and his first try at a distance longer than 1200m to score a neck win over quality mare Haut Brion Her, both horses back up from the Everest in which Gytrash was third.
"Once he got himself mobile he was brilliant," Richards said.
"The jockey's got ice in his veins. I couldn't be as cool as him.
"He had some work to do, the leaders sort of stacked them up and sprinted for home and left him a bit flat-footed on the heavy ground.
"But look, he just knows how to win. Or wants to win."
The Yes Yes Yes Stakes carried a first prize money purse of $580,000 plus an additional $750,000 bonus to any horse who won it after contesting The Everest and Richards is hoping his stable star can return again next year.
"He'll have a spell, have a break up here I think then come back to Adelaide and get ready for the Lightning and the Newmarket," Richards said.
"This is one place you can go to the races and the owners can fly up. I have been so welcomed up here. From Clare Cunningham's stables to Jason (Collett), the Inglis Hotel, everyone in the media."
A $40,000 purchase by his trainer out of the Maluka Thoroughbreds draft at the 2017 Inglis Premier Yearling Sale, Gytrash advances his record to 10 wins and 11 placings from 22 starts with prizemoney in excess of $3.2million. He was pinhooked out of the 2016 Inglis Great Southern Weanling Sale for $70,000.
Gytrash is the best of two winners out of the Fastnet Rock mare Miss Barley, a half-sister to stakes-winner Strawberry Storm, the grand-dam of Group I MRC Thousand Guineas winner Odeum, who was narrowly beaten at Flemington on Saturday in the Group I VRC Empire Rose Stakes behind Shout the Bar.
Gytrash is from the fourth and final Australian crop of his sire Lope de Vega (Fr), who stands at Ballylinch Stud in Ireland at a fee of 100,000 euros in 2020.
