Sears’ Yellow Brick gearing up for return
Image: Yellow Brick, (Credit Michael McInally)
The Tony and Maddysen Sears-trained Yellow Brick (The Mission) is being geared up for his return to the track in the coming weeks, with eyes on a second straight success in the Magic Millions Quality (1300m) on the Gold Coast.
Now a seven-year-old, the four-time stakes-winning gelding was last seen landing the W.J. Healy Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) at Eagle Farm on June 27 and looks set to return in the Sydney Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) on October 17 at Randwick.
Meanwhile, having been back in work for a few weeks, Yellow Brick headed to the Royal Brisbane Show where he collected several prizes, including Champion Thoroughbred Gelding.
“Every year they have these thoroughbred classes and they get all different horses,” Tony Sears told ANZ News.
“Like, Antino was in his class. Leigh [wife] and Madysen are heavily involved in showing and every year they take horses and they normally do very well so they decided to take him only because he was back on work.
“But he ended up competing in about three or four classes and I think he won all of them.”
Having run 11th in the Stradbroke Handicap (Gr 1, 1400m) on June 13, Yellow Brick then returned to Eagle Farm to score in the Healy Stakes before then being sent out for a spell at Embrook Stables.
“When he won the Bill Healy last start he went to Embrook for three weeks and he’s back in work now, so he sort of had his first gallop a couple of days ago,” Tony added.
“They [Embrook] do all Tony Golan’s horses; it’s a very, very top place. You’d be lucky to get any better than that and it’s very, very hard to get in there. They spell all the good horses and we normally have him there and Steady Ready and Nightline, some of our better ones go there.”
As for the future months, Sears feels that Yellow Brick would again be a tough nut to crack in the $1.5 million Magic Millions Quality at the Gold Coast – a race held for QTIS horses only – after defeating Bossed Up (Better Than Ready) by 1.2 lengths back in January.
“He starts in the Sydney Stakes on Everest Stakes day,” Sears said. “He goes there and then he’ll run a couple weeks later in the Russell Balding Stakes.
“Then he’ll come back and get ready for the QTIS race, the Magic Millions Quality, because that race is only for QTIS horses so he’s very well placed.
“He won it last year under James McDonald and he’s likely to be very hard to beat again this year too.”