Yes Yes YES!!! KATRINA PARTRIDGE
Each of us can dream. We can dream big. But it doesn’t mean a colt we personally selected at the Magic Millions Gold Coast sale two years earlier, who races in our silks, is the youngest horse in the field, and who we fought tooth and nail to a secure a slot for in the 2019 Everest will hand us the world’s richest turf event in track record time and a cheque for $6.6m. Racing can do that. Brae Sokolski knows all about it. “I’ve owned horses for 20 years. Small shares in cheap horses,” he says reflectively. “I only started to do it with any level of seriousness in the past few years and I bought Yes Yes Yes in just the second year. I do all the pedigree work. I then give my shortlist to my trainer and bloodstock consultant to physically check and validate the yearlings at the sale.”
“When we took him to the races Darren kept on saying ‘why am I running this colt he’s telling me he is a 3YO - but he has so much natural ability.’ Everything he gave us was just a bonus,” Sokolski says. The riches of January’s Magic Millions lured the horse to Queensland, however connections of the young star scratched Yes Yes Yes on the eve of the race after floating him north and he was sent to the spelling paddock with ‘ability in spades’.
Sokolski purchased a 50% share in the yearling with Weir syndicating the remaining 50% to clients.
Intriguingly the Magic Millions sales ring brand has been across this colt’s family from Day 1. The young sprint star is a son of Rubick, himself a Gold Coast Yearling Sale purchase. Rubick won the MRC Blue Diamond Prelude (c&g) Gr3 and the MRC Schillaci S., Gr2. Yes Yes Yes is from a Fantastic Light half sister to Hot as Hell. He is a half brother to the stakes performed mare Dee Nine Elle, yet another Magic Millions sold star (2019 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale; $720,000). The yearling half brother to Yes Yes Yes by leading sire Sebring [also a Magic Millions graduate] will be one of the pin up lots of the 2020 Gold Coast Yearling Sale with confirmation the youngster will be offered (as was Yes Yes Yes) in the draft of Kitchwin Hills.
The 2YO made his debut race at Moonee Valley on 1 December 2018, winning at his second start a fortnight later.
When Yes Yes Yes returned to training he was transferred to Chris Waller’s stables. After a barrier trial in February he resumed in the ATC Todman Stakes Gr2 in March
“Darren [Weir] and John [Foote] looked at [the colt]. We set a budget of $200,000. I’ve looked at my catalogue from that year and I’d written in big bold capitals ‘ATHLETE. RAW. FLASH 3YO.’” Sokolski said the colt certainly didn’t look like he would go early. “We didn’t buy him as a Magic Millions type. We were just lucky that the other party stopped bidding when we got to our limit so we were able to secure him. We were fortunate.”
24 / YES YES YES!!! THAT MILLION DOLLAR FEELING MMGC 20_ YesYesYes - DR.indd 24
2/12/19 10:19 am
