With Mark Zahra sitting on the sidelines for an, as yet, indefinite period of time after suffering a broken leg in an incident at the barriers last week, the Anthony and Sam Freedman stable has wasted little time in booking a jockey for their star performer Tentyris in the Group 1 Lightning Stakes, which will be contested at Flemington on February 14, making an early call to secure Damien Lane for the ride.
The Godolphin-owned runner will go into the Lightning Stakes looking for a hat-trick of wins, having saluted in the Listed Gothic Stakes and then, in commanding fashion, in the Group 1 Coolmore Stud Stakes. Both of those races were over 200 metres and Mark Zahra was in the saddle on both occasions, as he has been in five of Tentyris’s seven starts to date.
Lane has ridden Tentyris in a race before — namely the Group 1 Blue Diamond Stakes — in which Tentyris had to settle for an agonising second-best placing, only going down by the narrowest of margins.
Sam Freedman confirmed the Lane booking.
“Mark (Zahra) has been really transparent. He’s obviously still waiting on scans, but Damian Lane has been booked to ride him,” Freedman told Racing.com.
“He’ll have a sit on him in the next week or so. I think he is pretty excited to get on him.”
Tentyris is a rising star. He has won four of his seven starts to date and been placed twice. The only time he failed to finish in the first three places was on debut, when he kicked off his career by going straight to Group 3 company in the Chairman’s Stakes at Sandown a little under a year ago.
The chestnut son of Street Boss finished fifth on that occasion … and he hasn’t looked back since.
