Everest-winning colt Yes Yes Yes’ career cut short after tendon injury
The Coolmore hierarchy is disappointed that The Everest (1200m) winner Yes Yes Yes (Rubick) did not get the chance to race on the international stage nor add a Group 1 to his CV, but they believe the three-year-old has done more than enough to warrant a spot on their stallion roster.
There were plans for the Chris Waller-trained colt to resume in the Black Caviar Lightning Stakes (Gr 1, 1000m) at Flemington on Saturday week in a campaign that was directed towards the Diamond Jubilee Stakes (Gr 1, 6f) at Royal Ascot in June.
But the racing career of the Todman Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m)-winning juvenile, who cemented his stallion credentials with a victory in last year’s $14 million Everest, came to an immediate halt with confirmation that the colt had sustained a tendon injury to his nearside foreleg.
Coolmore’s Tom Magnier yesterday said that while a “wonderful journey has ended” for Waller and his team “another was just beginning”.
“Like all at Chris Waller Racing and anyone else ever involved with this son of Rubick, we are certain that Yes Yes Yes takes to his new career at stud with credentials that will see him succeed in transmitting to his progeny the same qualities of speed and precocity, allied with a wonderful temperament, that took him to the pinnacle of achievement on the track,” Magnier said.
Coolmore bought a 50 per cent stake in Yes Yes Yes after he won last season’s Todman Stakes. He would subsequently come from last to finish seventh in the Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) two weeks later on a Heavy 8 surface.
He returned in the spring to finish second twice to Bivouac (Exceed And Excel) in the Run To The Rose (Gr 2, 1200m) and Golden Rose (Gr 1, 1400m) before the gamble to run him in The Everest paid significant dividends.
Yes Yes Yes’ introductory service fee has already been discussed by Coolmore decision-makers, but a firm price and public release will not be made until later in the autumn, most likely around Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale time in April.
With competition from potential first season stallions this year, including Group 1-winning three-year-olds Bivouac (Exceed And Excel), Exceedance (Exceed And Excel) as well as Microphone (Exceed And Excel), Super Seth (Dundeel) and Castelvecchio (Dundeel), how Yes Yes Yes’ service fee is priced will be one of the key talking points.
Randwick Bloodstock Agency’s Brett Howard believes the fact that Yes Yes Yes does not have a Group 1 victory on his record is more than counteracted by his track record-breaking Everest win where he defeated ten individual elite level winners.
“I think The Everest is the premier 1200-metre sprint in Australia,” Howard told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“It’s run at weight for age and it attracts the best possible field, so if anything, it’s the equivalent to a ‘super Group 1’ without actually having the Group 1 tag next to its name.”
Howard predicted a game of cat and mouse between studmasters as they attempt to set competitive service fees for the 2020 breeding season.
“There’s a lot of water to flow under the bridge before they announce the fee (for Yes Yes Yes),” he said.
“What Rubick does in the next month or two might have a bearing on the service fee as well.
“It will also depend on what some of the other horses going to stud stand for. Traditionally, Coolmore tends to be near the end in terms of farms announcing their fees.”
How emerging stallions such as Rubick (Encosta De Lago), who stood for an increased fee of $38,500 (inc GST) in 2019, Deep Field (Northern Meteor) and first crop two-year-old sires including Vancouver (Medaglia d’Oro), Pride Of Dubai (Street Cry), Headwater (Exceed And Excel) and Press Statement (Hinchinbrook) perform in the coming months could also determine the price bracket the new brigade fit into.
“It just gets down to how some of the stallions with now two-year-olds, three-year-olds and even four-year-olds – the first, second and third crop stallions – fare over the next three or four months. They will have an influence on how the first season stallions are received (by breeders),” Howard said.
“If some of those horses really fire up, it draws breeders’ focus to those horses. People are then happy to support those stallions and likewise the proven horses as well.
“Ideally, breeders can’t send all their mares to unproven stallions. Given the choice, I think every breeder in Australia would love for there to be more proven stallions in the market.
“But the fact is, that’s not the case, so you have to mix it around with the unproven and proven stallions.”
Yes Yes Yes was set to participate in an exhibition gallop at Randwick’s Expressway Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) meeting on Saturday, but Waller called that off after heat in a leg was detected in the morning. Scans subsequently confirmed the tendon injury, which forced connections to retire the valuable colt.
Waller announced Yes Yes Yes’ retirement in a statement early yesterday after revealing that the “very special colt” would need nine to 12 months’ recuperation if he was to race again.
“Yes Yes Yes does not present as lame or sore,” Waller said.
“However, despite it being at the minor end of the scale of a tendon injury, the vet does assure me that if we were to push on with his campaign, it could quickly become a more significant problem and, as with any horse, this cannot be contemplated.
“It has been a brief but amazing ride with a wonderful colt and I am sure will make a great stallion in the future given the talent and ability he possessed as a racehorse.”
A $200,000 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale graduate bought by John Foote and the colt’s former trainer Darren Weir, Yes Yes Yes was bred by Wagga-based Brett Bradley who raced his mother Sin Sin Sin (Fantastic Light) before retaining her as a broodmare.
A half-sister to the stakes winners Hot As Hell (County), Flaming Hot (County) and Craig’s Dragon (Catbird), Sin Sin Sin is also a half-sister to juvenile winner Hell It’s Hot (Zeditave), the dam of dual Group 1-winning sprinter In Her Time (Time Thief).
Sin Sin Sin’s three foals to race are all winners headed, of course, by Yes Yes Yes and the stakes-placed mare Dee Nine Elle (Duporth).
Sin Sin Sin’s yearling colt by Sebring (More Than Ready) was purchased for $700,000 at the recent Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale by trainer Lloyd Kennewell and Group 1 Bloodstock while the mare is in foal to Zoustar (Northern Meteor) after missing to Not A Single Doubt (Redoute’s Choice) the previous year.