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By Ray Hickson

Country Championships winner Know Thyself will likely follow the ‘Rustic Steel’ path if he continues his rise in Saturday’s $500,000 The Coast (1600m) at Gosford.

Know Thyself's co-trainer Leah Gavranich (Pic: Bradley Photos).

Back in 2022, the Kris Lees-trained Rustic Steel won the Central Coast feature and backed up six days later to claim the Scone Cup – the race Know Thyself’s trainers Paul Messara and Leah Gavranich have been keen to contest since his Championships win.

Rustic Steel also went on to win the Big Dance in the same year.

Gavranich said the four-year-old has continued to thrive since he carried 61kg to victory at Randwick two weeks ago when rising to the mile for the first time this preparation.

“He just feels like he keeps improving and improving,’’ she said.

“Obviously he hasn’t reached his top yet but he almost bounces out of it better than the last one.

“He came out of the last run outstanding, he keeps jumping from one run to the next like he never went around which is a great sign.

“We think he’s a mile-2000m horse every day of the week. It’s good to finally get him out to the trip where we think he’s going to be most effective.

“Ideally I’d love to back him up into the Scone up, obviously all going well because the horse comes first.”

With a rating of 86 going into Gosford, Know Thyself likely needs to lift his rating into the 90s to find a place in the Scone Cup.

Know Thyself, $3.50 with TAB on Thursday, will drop to 53kg in The Coast and because of that regular rider Aaron Bullock can’t ride and Ash Morgan has been handed the job.

It’s important to note the gelding will wear bandages behind and Gavranich said that’s a precaution after a minor incident in work earlier this week but points out he has worn them previously.

“When he worked on Tuesday he took a bit of fur off one of his bumpers, we were thinking going forward if he comes out of the run taking more hair off we’d be kicking ourselves,’’ she said.

Morgan’s job in steering Know Thyself isn’t the simplest one as they’ve drawn near the outside and Gavranich is wary of that but is confident the new rider has the horse to make the right moves.

She said advantage should be taken of the massive drop in weight and just hopes Morgan has that ounce of luck early.

“There’s a few genuine leaders and a few that will kick up from good draws so I think it will generate a fair bit of pace where we should hopefully be able to slot in,’’ she said.

“He’ll always put himself in his races, you can use him, you win more races than he loses because he’s so tractable.

“If you need to give him a shake up to get into a position when you switch him off he’ll switch off.

Know Thyself wins at Randwick on April 26

“For me the closer the better because of the weight and the track.

“You don’t want to be chasing around the turn, you want to be there ready to strike and letting rip in the straight.”

All the fields, form and replays for Saturday’s Gosford meeting