Racing: Little lady grabs victory and bonus

You needed to be in the Ruakaka jockeys' room listening to the conversation between trainer Richard Yuill and his rider Matthew Williamson.

You also needed to know which one you believed.

"This filly [Echo Maid] will be in the money you know," Williamson told Yuill just before mounting for the $50,000 Oceanz Seaford Breeders Stakes on Saturday.

Yuill had already looked at the $61 showing on the tote.

"You like to hear a bit of these things, but you don't take them too seriously, do you," Yuill said after legging Williamson into the saddle and watching Echo Maid walk out onto a rain-sodden Ruakaka track.

Yuill now admits that perhaps he should have taken the observation a little more seriously.

But when Echo Maid stormed down the outside of the track to demolish a particularly smart field, Yuill was happy simply in the thought that he had just witnessed his second stakes winner since the ending of the highly successful training partnership with Colin Jillings.

"Winning a stakes race with Filante Etoile at the Brisbane carnival was a big buzz and so was winning this race."

A lot of racing's elements are better viewed with hindsight and Yuill admits he probably should not have been quite so dismissive of Williamson's confidence.

"Don't get me wrong, I thought she'd run a race, but there was no way I was going to tell the owners she would win.

"But looking back on her third to Donna Rosita at Ruakaka at her last start, it put her right in this race.

"The winner was slipping along in the lead and she must have made up 10 to 15 lengths on her from the 600m to finish third five lengths and a nose back.

"That was over 1000m and the extra 200m this time definitely worked in her favour."

It's not the first time Echo Maid has surprised Yuill. He and Jillings bought the filly at the 2004 Karaka sales for $35,000 because they were sure they'd found an early-season precocious juvenile, not the winner of the last major 2-year-old race of the season in the north.

"We felt she would be an early 2-year-old - it looks like she's going to be an early 3-year-old. It shows how they can make liars of you."

Echo Maid is raced by the family of former Auckland Racing Club chairman Barry Neville-White and Peter and Ivan Grieves. Yuill's mother, Phyllis, took over the fourth share at the death last November of father Bob.

Thanks to the foresight of the Whangarei Racing Club, Echo Maid walked away with $51,000.

The club had been worried about the likely strength of its 2-year-old race on the track in June and elected to put a $5000 bonus up for a horse that competed in June then won Saturday's Breeders Stakes.

Echo Maid took that and the $15,000 national incentive scheme bonus.

"It was a big day for the owners," said Yuill.

Yuill describes Echo Maid as a real little lady who wants to be a professional.

"She had a long day yet came home and ate up everything."

Echo Maid had what looked to be bad luck in running, getting pushed back to near last in the middle stages, but it may well have been a blessing.

Heavy rain fell during the race. Many of the relatively inexperienced juveniles were getting significant sand kicked back in their faces and Echo Maid was much better off wide on the track where she was committed to making her run.

She beat Hypnotiq by three-quarters of a length with a further 1 1/2 lengths back to Donna Rosita.

Yuill said he does not believe the filly is a natural on winter tracks and will bypass the last of the season's stakes races, the Ryder Stakes.

On August 1 Filante Etoile will rejoin the stable which has relocated from Takanini to a property between Patumahoe and Waiuku.

"The Vela boys told me that after her stakes win in Queensland I could keep her going for races and then be put in stud, or she could come home and spell and have another season racing.

"I decided on the latter."