Yolo (NZ) Hands Myers Another NZB Airfreight Road to Jericho Win

Three years after going close to A$300,000 Jericho Cup (4600m) glory with the winner of one of New Zealand’s NZB Airfreight-sponsored qualifiers, Whanganui trainer Kevin Myers might be on the same path again.

Myers won Saturday’s $40,000 NZB Airfreight Road to Jericho (3210m) in runaway fashion with Yolo (NZ) (Zed). The winner receives a guaranteed start in the Jericho Cup at Warrnambool on November 30, and NZB Airfreight offers a $5,000 equine airfreight credit, should they decide to travel across the Tasman and contest the Jericho Cup.

In the 2022 season, Myers won the South Island’s qualifying race at Riccarton with Botti (NZ) (Jakkalberry), who went on to finish second in the Jericho Cup.

Yolo is an eight-year-old mare who is in the middle of a racing renaissance. She was a black-type performer as a three-year-old, finishing fourth in the Group Three Wellington Stakes (1600m), Sunline Vase (2100m) and Manawatu Classic (2000m). Then she won three of her six starts as a five-year-old two seasons later. But after winning over 1800 metres at Riccarton in November of 2022, she endured a win drought that spanned more than two and a half years.

Things began to change with a maiden hurdle victory at Trentham in June, and Yolo has returned to flat racing this season and has scored back-to-back wins at Otaki on September 6 and in the Road to Jericho a week later.

Yolo’s superior stamina was the winning of the race on Saturday. While most of the field was running on empty coming up to the home turn, Yolo was cruising through the testing Heavy10 conditions.

She bounded to the lead in the straight and pulled away to win by four and a quarter lengths.

“That was really good,” jockey Elle Sole said. “It was similar to what she did at Otaki last week. She just travelled beautifully the whole way. She got herself into a nice rhythm. I just gave her a little squeeze down the side and she just went into it. It was easy from there and a pretty cool feeling.”

Yolo has now had 46 starts for seven wins, 12 placings and $189,710 in prize-money.

“It was a good performance today by a mare that Kevin seems to have got back into form,” owner-breeder Sam Trotter said.

“I’ll leave it up to Kevin to decide what he does with her from here, but that entry into the Jericho Cup has to be quite attractive. She might be a suitable horse for the race, considering her style of sitting back and doing nothing in the running before picking up and running home strongly in the last 600 metres. But it’ll be Kevin who makes that decision.”

The second of this season’s New Zealand qualifiers for the Jericho Cup, another NZB Airfreight-sponsored event, will be run at Riccarton on October 25, just over a month out from the big race.

The Jericho Cup was inaugurated in 2018 and is open to Australian and New Zealand-bred horses only, commemorating the light horse involvement in World War I and run on the fourth Sunday after the Group One Melbourne Cup (3200m). The original Jericho Cup was run in 1918 over three miles through desert sands. Its 100th anniversary was marked with the introduction of the modern Jericho Cup seven years ago.

The New Zealand influence on the Jericho Cup has quickly taken hold, with six of the first seven winners bred on this side of the Tasman – High Mode (NZ) (Redwood), Ablaze (NZ) (Raise the Flag), Count Zero (NZ) (Zed), Bastida (NZ) (Pierro), Nassak Diamond and last year’s winner Farag (NZ) (Sacred Falls).