Yonce to make Boxing Day return

[Wandering Eyes]

Ciaron Maher and David Eustace’s quality mare Yonce (NZ) (Proisir) will return to the races for the first time in twenty months when she runs in the Listed Christmas Stakes at Caulfield on Tuesday.

A winner of six of her seven starts, Yonce hasn’t raced since she finished fourth in the Gr.1 Queen of the Turf Stakes in April 2022.

“She’s come back well, she’s recovered from a tendon strain,” said Eustace.

“She’s had four trials in the end, that’s just how it’s worked out. She kicks off over 1100m which is not her ideal trip at all. We’re hoping it’s just not too short, but we feel she’ll probably race reasonably fresh anyway, so 1100m will be ok.

“We’d just like to see her travel and hit the line.”

Despite her winning record, Eustace suggested that it was at her last run that Yonce demonstrated the depths of her class.

“Without downplaying her in any way, we very much kept her in her grade and didn’t pitch her into the deep end until her very last run, but she ran very well in the Queen of the Turf and ran fourth,” he said.

“She’s obviously a smart mare and seems to have come back pretty well.”

Eustace revealed that the plan was for Yonce to head to the Listed John Dillon Stakes at Caulfield on January 26 for her next run, while longer term, a race like the Gr.1 Coolmore Classic in March could be a suitable target for her.

“She’s actually not a stakes winner, she ran fourth in a group one so obviously, first priority will be to try and make her a stakes winner,” he said.

“There’s a lot of races for her depending on how she comes back.”

Out of the Zabeel mare Ziva, Yonce was passed in as a yearling for $30,000 during the New Zealand Bloodstock Book 2 Sale from the Woburn Farm draft.

She was later purchased by Cambridge trainer Ross McCarroll, for whom she finished third in two trials and caught the eye of prominent Australian owner Ozzie Kheir.

Kheir bought an interest in the Proisir mare, but McCarroll and his fellow Kiwi owners – Shane McAlister, Stephen Kneebone and Lyn McMullan – remain in the ownership.

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