Yaldi (NZ) Takes Guineas Honours

The $270,000 Group Two Shaw’s Wire Ropes Auckland Guineas (1400m) at Ellerslie on Boxing Day marked a new career high for Yaldi (NZ) (Ardrossan), who was a $50,000 purchase from Karaka 2023 and has a full-brother going through the ring in late January.

The talented three-year-old has now had five starts for two wins and two placings, earning $214,601 – more than four times his purchase price. Yaldi races in the familiar colours of JML Bloodstock’s Lib Petagna, who will offer the full-brother in his Elsdon Park draft at Karaka 2025. The Ardrossan colt is catalogued as Lot 90 in Book 1.

The Andrew Forsman-trained Yaldi was a smart winner on debut at Pukekohe in April, then crossed the Tasman and finished a highly creditable third in the Listed Anzac Day Stakes (1400m) at Flemington in his only other two-year-old start. His first two appearances of the current season produced an eighth in the Group Three McNeil Stakes (1200m) at Caulfield in late August and a close second against older horses at Te Rapa earlier this month.

Yaldi stepped up into Group Two class on Boxing Day against a Guineas field stacked with highly rated three-year-olds, and he passed the test in superb style.

Having settled in third place for the majority of the race, Yaldi’s jockey Michael McNab found clear air in the straight and set out after the front-runner Midnight Edition (NZ) (Wrote). That rival found a powerful kick after rounding the home turn and took plenty of catching, but Yaldi slowly but surely drew alongside him.

Yaldi and Midnight Edition went to the line locked together and initially shared the spoils in a dead heat, but Yaldi was later awarded outright victory due to interference by Midnight Edition in the closing stages.

“I was a bit worried mid-race, because it wasn’t unfolding as we’d hoped,” Forsman said. “They were only going steadily and he was quite keen with the blinkers on for the first time. I was really happy to see him knuckle down off the slow speed like he did.

“The blinkers are something we’ve toyed with for a little while – he’s trialled with them on before and looks around a lot. He’s still very raw and immature and he’s still learning, so I just thought he needed to focus a bit more after the other day at Te Rapa where he probably threw the race away.

“The main target for this preparation has been the Karaka Millions 3YO (1600m), and obviously the NZB Kiwi (1500m) and races like that are on his radar.

"The 1500 metres of the NZB Kiwi at Ellerslie is tailor-made for him, he doesn’t need to do too much more and you’d think with a bigger field with hopefully a more genuine tempo, it should suit him as well.”