HOW A $20 000 PURCHASE WENT ON TO BECOME KING OF THE MOUNTAIN

By Graham Potter | Sunday, January 1, 2023

She hadn’t quite got her voice back after all of the excitement of Saturday evening, but Maddysen Sears was more than happy to provide the behind-the-scenes story of the win of Yellow Brick, the horse she co-trains with her father Tony, in the $750 000 King Of The Mountain at Toowoomba on New year’s Eve.

“We got him for $20 000,” confirmed Maddysen Sears. “We weren’t even at the sales when Paul Moroney and Catheryne Bruggeman rang and said, ‘there is a horse here ... you guys need to buy it.’

Paul said he didn’t know what price it was going to make ... but he originally thought it might go for as much as $100 000 ... but he had a chip in his back fetlock and we thought ... ok, well, it is only a $2 000 surgery ... we’ll see what we can get him for.

“We were blown away when we got him for $20 000.”

“Our relationship with Paul and Catheryne has been a fantastic one,” continued sears. “I can’t even remember what sales we were at when we first met. It was a chance meeting ... we just randomly were seated at their table, and we got chatting.

“Things progressed from their and now we have got both a fantastic friendship and business relationship and they have bought us incredibly nice horses to date. We totally trust their judgement.

“They have probably bought us probably around fifteen horses ... a lot of two-year-olds ... and, so far, we have only had three of them race ... Yellow Brink (who has now earned $600 850), Steady Ready ($266 200) and Singapore Lady ($23 300) ... and they have all won, so we have a hundred percent strike rate with what they have bought us.

“This was never really a path we were going to take with Yellow Brick, but then we got the King Of The Mountain slot and so we gave Yellow Brick three weeks down at Universal just for a little freshen up,” explained Maddysen Sears.

“Then he had a 900m jump out at home and then had a trial at Brisbane on December 20 (which he won) ... but, we just kept the horse quite fresh.

‘He has had a fair amount of work, but we kept him fresh by mixing things up a bit. He wants to win races. He jumps and just gives his all. He is so honest. He is all class.

“We were pretty confident going into the race,” said Sears. “Dad said, if he had drawn a gate, he would be a moral ... but when he drew the gate he did (Yellow Brick jumped from barrier nine) ... we thought ... ahhh.

“But it was just so cool the way things worked out ... the way the race unfolded,” continued Sears.

“There was a massive group of us watching ... because so many of our family had come down to watch. When they got to the turn, mum was next to me and we all just started screaming from the top of the straight because he (Yellow Brick) was home.”

Once Yellow Brick started performing so well (he has now won five of his six starts), he also started attracting attention of would-be purchasers.

“We had offers along the way between $500 000 and $750 000. In fact, the latest offer came in on last Wednesday, just three days before King Of The Mountain race, when we actually got an offer of $750 000 for him.

“Dad said the horse is definitely racing in the King Of The Mountain and, if he wins that, in the Magic Millions ... so we were not going to talk about anything until after that ... but, even then, all of the connections involved in the horse have spoken about it and I would say the horse is not for sale.

“Not that the offers are likely to stop, I guess ... not now!”

“It was just such a great night."

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