No Nay Never Filly Benefits From U.S. Sojourn

[Wandering Eyes]

There’s nothing the least bit unusual about the Coolmore team shipping to the U.S. and winning races, but the victories almost always come at the Grade I level and often in Breeders’ Cup races. So when a filly named Yesterdayoncemore (Ire) (No Nay Never) was entered in the Sept. 2 Del Mar Juvenile Fillies Turf S., which had a $100,000 purse, it was a bit of a head-scratcher. Why bring a horse all the way from Ireland, particularly one who was winless in five career starts, for a relatively minor race at a track about 8,400 kilometers from home?

It turns out that the ownership group, which includes Deron Pearson’s DP Racing, felt they had a quality filly and bringing her to the U.S. was the best chance they had of being proven right. When deciding how to manage your horses, sometimes you take chances, even if they don’t necessarily make sense on paper.

And sometimes they work.

Yesterdayoncemore won the race by a length (video) and is now being considered a potential starter for the GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf.

“The plan was always to start her in Europe and if she were able to win a graded stakes leave her there,” said Pearson, a Las Vegas resident. “If it looked like the graded stakes were a little tough for her we planned to send her to the U.S. to race. There were two reasons for that. The competition for turf horses is a little easier here and she would have more chances to run on firm ground and we’ve always thought she was a firm ground filly.”

Yesterdayoncemore was purchased at the 2018 Tattersalls October Yearling Sale for 110,000gns. Soon thereafter, Pearson bought a half interest in the filly.

She started off her career with two straight second-place finishes over all-weather tracks and then finished off the board in three straight tries on the turf. In all three races the going was listed as good.

“Deron Pearson lives over there and wanted to see his horse run at his home track,” trainer Fozzy Stack said. “That was one of the factors. The other was that the ground was getting a bit soft at home and she wants a very fast track. The logical place to come for firm turf was the U.S.”

They also got a bit lucky. The same card included a $61,000 maiden race for 2-year-old grass fillies and Pearson said that he and Stack wanted to run in that race while Coolmore’s Paul Shanahan wanted to go in the stakes race. The decision was taken out of their hands when the maiden race was oversubscribed and Yesterdayoncemore did not get in.

Irish-bred horses finished one, two, three in the race and another was ninth. Stack said he was confident he could beat the foreign shippers, but admitted he didn’t have a good read on the American starters.

“I wasn’t too worried about the European horses,” Stack said. “I knew we’d have their measure. I didn’t know how we would stack up to the Americans. But we did think she would stay and get the mile well and there weren’t many in there that were proven at the trip.”

Despite a rough trip (she steadied twice under jockey Victor Espinoza), Yesterdayoncemore found room in the stretch and won with something left in the tank.

“Any time you travel this far and get a little luck out of it you get a good kick out of it because a lot of planning and things go into it,” Stack said. “It’s a team effort and it’s good when these things work out. It was an away game for us.”

With Stack as the trainer, Yesterdayoncemore will stay in the U.S. and go next in the Oct. 6 Surfer Girl S. at Santa Anita. Should she run well there, the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita will be next.

“If she runs as well in the next race as she did the other day, then, yes, I think we have a Breeders’ Cup horse,” Pearson said.

After the Breeders’ Cup, Yesterdayoncemore will likely ship to Florida and will be based there with trainer Patrick Biancone. The other option would be to keep her in California with trainer Jim Cassidy.

Pearson has only recently teamed up with Coolmore and this was his first stakes win since he joined their team. He says he co-owns two horses with them in Europe and a handful in the U.S.

“What a great group to be partners with,” he said. “I’d like nothing more than a long, successful partnership with them. We’ve gotten off to a good start.”

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