Country mare Lycra Lass is being groomed for a middle distance career but trainer Wayne Carroll won’t be surprised if she delivers a city win as a sprinter-miler on Tuesday.
Lycra Lass, an $11 chance in early betting, will be trying to make it back-to-back wins in the Vale Reg Hutchinson Handicap (1550m) at Randwick on Tuesday.
In seven runs in a campaign which started in January, Lycra Lass has posted Canberra and Wagga Wagga victories and Carroll says he has nothing to lose by trying his luck in Sydney.
“She will be going for a spell after Tuesday but she’s still at the top of her game,” he said.
“We’ve got a nice alley (three) and a decent weight (55kg) after the claim so I’m hoping she can take up a position and then use her turn of foot.”
Lycra Lass heads to Sydney after winning the Queen Of The South, the feature race for fillies and mares during the Wagga Wagga Gold Cup carnival.
The four-year-old was given the run of the race before holding on to beat Miss Shamardal.
Miss Shamardal is a rival again on Tuesday but Lycra Lass will meet her one kilogram better on their Wagga Wagga clash after Black Spriggs’s 2kg allowance.
“She came through the Wagga run well and I think the 1550 (metres) will help her on Tuesday because the 1400 (metres) was a little bit too sharp for her last time even though she won,” Carroll said.
Lycra Lass has been a work in progress for Carroll, an original member of the Sydney Swans team when the South Melbourne Football Club relocated north in the 1980s.
“She’s not a big condition carrier and I’ve had to be patient because I didn’t want to bottom her out,” he said.
“Early in her career, racing would really knock her around but she’s fully mature now.
“This time next year I’m thinking she is going to make a 2000-metre horse.”
Carroll played seven seasons with the Swans until returning to bush football in the Riverina before retiring in the early 1990s to take up training thoroughbreds.
Some of his ex-teammates are an integral part of his Wagga Wagga stable.
None more so than former Sydney and Carlton player Bernie Evans who shares ownership of Lycra Lass.
AAP TURF
