Simon Zahra says a second-place finish in the Melbourne Trainers’ Premiership would be a feather in the cap for the training partnership he shares with Mathew Ellerton.

Currently in third place with 38 winners for the season, Mathew Ellerton & Simon Zahra need four more winners to surpass the disbanded Tom Dabernig and Ben Hayes team.

Ellerton and Zahra are no chance of running down Ciaron Maher & David Eustace who lead with 69 winners while behind Ellerton and Zahra is Danny O’Brien on 36 winners.

“It’s been our best year and with the Hayes boys changing their name, we’ve noticed that, we’re having a crack,” Zahra said.

“But at this time of the year you don’t have your full army in, but hopefully we can chip away over the next month.

“We’re not going to have a lot of runners and we’ve got Danny right on our hammer as well, but it’s certainly a goal to have a crack at.

“I think we finished tenth last year, this year we’ve had a good year and it has been an even spread for 12 months which is always good as it shows you are getting winners every month.

“If we finished second, we’d be pretty chuffed about it.”

While runners may be down in coming weeks, the spring horses are starting to filter back building up to their returns next month.

Zahra is looking forward to General Beau, winner of the Blue Diamond Preview and Prelude in the autumn before running fifth in the Blue Diamond, this spring.

“He’s come back better,” Zahra said.

“There’s half-a-dozen three-year-olds that have come back into work that we really like and hopefully one of them puts their hand up.”

And a smokey for the spring.

“Shootoose is one we like,” Zahra said.

“He ran at Sandown about three months ago and really flew home. We just have to see how he measures up.”

Article from JustHorseRacing.com.au