Yellow Brick builds in ’24
Queenslander back bigger and better
Tony Sears had no qualms about pulling the pin on a $10m race with Yellow Brick as he revealed the emerging Queensland star looked like an entirely new horse before an exciting 2024.
Yellow Brick was an eyecatcher as he came through the ranks in the Sunshine State and many thought the then three-year-old could have given the 2023 Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap a shake if he had secured a start.
It was not to be and he ended up being sent to Sydney for a $10m Golden Eagle campaign that ended prematurely after he was beaten a long way in the Silver Eagle after being ridden out of his comfort zone.
He then trialled before the Golden Eagle but Sears, who co-trains with daughter Maddy in Toowoomba, was not satisfied.
He pulled the pin on his Golden Eagle tilt with some big goals in 2024 in mind.
The four-year-old has now turned from a boy into a man.
“I am pretty happy with him at the moment, he has put on a lot of weight and developed so much that he doesn’t even look like the same horse now,” Sears said.
“Our main thing, when things didn’t go right in Sydney, was to give him a good spell and bring him back in 2024 with the option of going down a Stradbroke path.
“Within the next few weeks, we will sit down and work out a proper plan.
“We have had a couple of offers to run him in the slot race in Rockhampton (The Archer, $775,000 race in April) so that may be an option to kick him off in.
“It is also possible this campaign he could get out over a bit more distance.
“We are confident he could run 2000m, even though he has never tried it.”
Sears said there were no health or injury worries after Yellow Brick’s aborted Sydney campaign last year, saying the “horse was 100 per cent sound, he has never had an injury in his life”.
But the trainer was always mindful he had only scratched the surface of Yellow Brick’s potential and wanted to put him in cotton wool with some other big fish to fry.
He has no regrets about not deploying him in the Golden Eagle, which was won by Japanese raider Obamburumai.
“Ryan Maloney flew to Sydney to trial him before the Golden Eagle and he seemed to think he trialled well enough,” Sears said.
“But he did want to overrace a bit in the early part of the trial, when we wanted him just to get back and run on.
“I just didn’t think he trialled well enough, so we pulled up stumps.
“But there were no other issues, he was 100 per cent sound and has never had an injury in his life.”