Last year’s J&B Met runner up Gold Onyx “will need the run badly” in Saturday’s Gr 2 Premier Trophy over 1800m at Kenilworth warned national champion trainer Sean Tarry.

Tarry said the eight-year-old Black Minnaloushe gelding’s last gallop had “unfortunately” revealed he had needed it significantly and he consequently adjudged he would still be some way below his peak for Saturday’s race.

Gold Onyx is known for his devastating turn of foot but short run-in and is drawn three on Saturday in the race which was used as his Cape Summer Of Champions Season pipe opener last year. He finished a 2,5 length sixth from a wide draw of eight back but had a November run in Durban under his belt back then, whereas Saturday’s run will be his seasonal reappearance.

He went on last year to finish an unlucky third in the Gr 1 L’Ormarin’s Queen’s Plate followed by a second in the Met so there is plenty of life in him yet, despite it now being six seasons since his only Gr 1 win in the Premier’s Champion Stakes over 1600m at Greyville as a two-year-old.

His resurgence last year was thought to have had a bit to do with his association with a jockey who brought the best out of him, Grant Behr, but one of the Tarry yard’s chief stable jockeys, S’Manga Khumalo, will be back aboard on Saturday.

By David Thiselton

Picture: Gold Onyx (Nkosi Hlophe)