Giga Kick Stradbroke Back Up is Unlikely

A delayed feature race won’t disrupt Giga Kick’s path to the Gr1 Kingsford-Smith Cup, with trainer Clayton Douglas confirming the top-class sprinter will have a quiet gallop during the week before lining up at Eagle Farm this Saturday. According to racing.com, the rescheduling follows last weekend’s abandonment of the final four races due to relentless rain and poor visibility, which also forced the relocation of three key Group races, including the Kingsford-Smith and Queensland Derby. “It doesn’t really change too much for us. It’s okay,” Douglas said, noting the gelding had been ready to fire and would have handled the original heavy track conditions without issue. Douglas remains confident in Giga Kick’s fitness, despite the shift extending the gap between runs from three to four weeks following his third placing in the Gr1 The Goodwood. “He’ll just keep ticking over. He’ll have a gallop on Tuesday or Wednesday and he’ll be fine,” he said. “He ran in the Challenge Stakes first-up and then was a month between runs going into the TJ Smith on a Heavy 9 – and he just got beaten – so he’s done it before and performed well.” Giga Kick, a proven performer on rain-affected ground, has impressed his trainer with how well he’s come through his preparation. “He’s in great order,” Douglas added. “It’s just a matter of ticking him over and getting him there in good shape on Saturday.” Looking ahead, however, Douglas has virtually ruled out a quick back-up into the Stradbroke Handicap on June 14, a week after the Kingsford-Smith. “That’s probably diminished again even more now,” he said of the possibility. “The 58.5kg with a seven-day turnaround, I don’t know whether I would be doing that to him. If the track’s going to be soft again this week, I won’t be buttering him up in the Stradbroke.” Instead, the likelihood is Giga Kick will head for a spell after this weekend’s feature. Despite the change of plans, Douglas expressed no frustration about last Saturday’s washout. “You could tell the track was so deteriorated it was hard to suggest that many horses were probably going to be getting through that ground and, obviously, with the visibility, it was probably inevitable that they were going to have to be called off,” he said. “Hopefully it’s a bit more of a fairer racing surface this time.”