Yes Yes Yes scales Everest heights
To the side of the stage after he’s just won the biggest prize ever offered in Australian horse racing history, Brae Sokolski’s tears are running down a cheek splattered with lipstick.
He’s talking about a phone call he had made only a little over a week earlier.
Darren Weir was on the other end of the line, once Australia’s most prolific trainer. Weir stood atop the racing mountain with a machine which relentlessly churned out winners until his empire crumbled with one police raid earlier this year.
Weir is facing a string of police charges for alleged animal cruelty offences using electric shock devices, which dropped barely a week before the ABC’s expose on abattoirs slaughtering retired racehorses. But Sokolski’s bottom lip was quivering when he talked about the role every person has played to help his now $50 million three-year-old colt Yes Yes Yes win The Everest at Royal Randwick on Saturday. The pair bought the horse for $200,000, Weir training it before his property was set upon.
‘‘Irrespective of what anyone says about him I know what person he is and I’ll never forget the role he’s played in this horse and my place in this industry,’’ Sokolski told the Herald. "I hope [he’s watching]. It’s the hardest part [him not being here].’’
Race favourite Santa Ana Lane flew from back in the field to finish second with Trekking.
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■ Nature Strip, part-owned by All Blacks coach Steve Hansen, finished a close fourth after leading for much of the way. SMH