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By Ray Hickson

Trainer Gayna Williams rates promising galloper Zarizatycoon her best chance of winning a Country Championships Final after the gelding became the seventh horse she’s qualified for Randwick with a big win at Orange on Friday.

The five-year-old stormed to a 2-3/4 length win in the $150,000 Evergreen Turf Central Districts Country Championships (1400m) and became Williams’ third winner of the race following Healing Hands (2020) and Zoo Station (2022).

For jockey Mikayla Weir, the race was something of a breakthrough as she’d ridden six seconds placings in qualifying races and finally broke the shackles.

Williams said Zarizatycoon has so much talent and it was satisfying to watch him win the race she’d set him for since he started racing a year ago.

“He’s awesome, he really is,’’ she said.

Gayna Williams and Mikayla Weir celebrate their Country Championships win at Orange. (Pic: Janian McMillan).

“He’s a daunting big horse but he’s extremely talented. If he hadn’t had the couple of issues he’s had he could do anything.

“He’s held back just a little bit but certainly for what he’s doing at the moment he’s extremely pleasing.

“Zoo Station was exceptionally good but this bloke is a bit special I think.”

Zarizatycoon is a half-brother to Tags, who was runner-up to Zoo Station but didn’t contest the Final due to injury, and Williams said the race couldn’t have panned out any better for him from a barrier that turned out to be perfect.

Despite racing wide, the gelding put the race away early in the straight to beat the Dean Mirfin-trained Don Stefano, charging home from the back, who cut out Williams’ other runner Light Infantry for the second spot in the Final.

“We’d have been worse off if we’d drawn an inside gate,’’ she said.

“If he’s trapped on the rail it wouldn’t be a good place so drawing nine was favourable for his racing pattern and how big he is.”

Weir rode Zarizatycoon in his first four starts but thought she’d almost lost the ride when she elected not to partner him two starts ago.

But she was back on board for his lead up win at Hawkesbury and was rapt to get the job done even though everything didn’t go her way in the run.

“What a terrific experience, Gayna has been so loyal to me,’’ Weir said.

“I couldn’t ride him at Parkes, I went elsewhere, and I can’t believe she’d let me stick and come back on him at Hawkesbury and keep the ride today.

“It looked like I was going to fold into a one off spot and one on the fence dug up underneath us and held us in the three wide line.

“He’s a big horse and trying to smother him up is not ideal anyway.

“I was a little bit concerned when we started rounding up the top because he wanted to drop the bridle on me a little bit but once I gave him a bit of an egg along he was perfect.”

Zarizatycoon is an $8 chance with TAB in the $1 million Evergreen Turf Country Championships Final (1400m) run at Randwick on April 5 having secured his place, while Don Stefano is at $26.

All the results and replays for Friday’s Country Championships meeting at Orange