Oh Yes She Did's Quezette flyer vindicates connections' commitment to Yes Yes Yes

Cover image courtesy of Gooree Park

The mark of a good stallion is consistency, and on Saturday, Yes Yes Yes notched a treble across metropolitan and provincial tracks in New South Wales, and added a 12th career stakes performer when Oh Yes She Did bolted home from out wide to finish third in Natural Fling’s (Home Affairs) G3 Quezette Stakes.

Another winner at Bathurst on Monday brings the Gooree Park Stud resident’s total for the 2026/27 season to seven individual winners, plus one more in Malaysia. Last season, he finished equal fourth amongst the third season sires with 67 Australian winners and a grand total of 79 worldwide. Amongst them were over 20 individual metropolitan winners..

Of those 12 stakes performers, three have shown they can strike at Group 1 level. Firm Agreement was first to put his hand up, coming second in Aeliana’s (NZ) (Castelvecchio) G1 Australian Derby and third in the G1 Spring Champion Stakes. Last season, two more stepped up as well.

Affirmative Action, a bold winner of the Listed Sir Colin Meads Trophy last spring, was beaten a head later that preparation in the G1 New Zealand Two Thousand Guineas, and Speed Demon (NZ) broke his maiden as a pre-Christmas juvenile then ran third in the G1 Manawatu Sires' Produce Stakes.

With a winner every two and a half days so far this season and another Group horse up and running, connections of the Everest record holder have plenty to look forward to this spring.

Living up to her name

Oh Yes She Did is no stranger to hard work. Last spring, she was last of the pack on the turn for home in the G3 Gimcrack Stakes, improving to finish fourth just a length and a half behind Shiki (Too Darn Hot {GB}). She was forced out wide again in the R. Listed Inglis Millennium won by Fireball (Snitzel) in her final juvenile start.

Transferred from Mitchell and Desiree Kearney to Peter Snowden for her Classic year, the filly had a kinder trip on the rails to break her maiden at Warwick Farm on resumption as a 2-year-old, before heading south for the Quezette where she was lumped with barrier 15.

While Natural Fling was busy widening her margin on the field, Oh Yes She Did closed from ninth at the 400-metre mark to biting at runner-up Scintillation’s (I Am Invincible) heels on the line. It portends exciting things to come.

Oh Yes She Did’s owner Daniel Springfield had only dabbled in small share racehorse ownership before last year’s Inglis Classic Yearling Sale. When his partner Jasmine Banks and him shared in a Powerball win, Springfield decided to invest properly in yearlings. Partnering with old friends, the Kearneys, he bought 10 yearlings at the Classic sale and another four at the following Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale.

And Springfield was spending no small money either. The Yes Yes Yes filly was a $240,000 purchase from Tyreel Stud and comes from the close family of Vinery Stud stallions Headwater and Captivant. She is now her dam’s third stakes performer and is a full sister to Listed Tattersall's Stakes placegetter Maili (Yes Yes Yes), as well as a half to Listed winner Kalino (Pierro).

Springfield had followed Yes Yes Yes’s racing career with interest, and found himself drawn to the tall third crop daughter of the Champion 3YO Colt.

“She was tall, she was leggy, she had a big, strong stride on her,” Springfield recalled seeing the filly for the first time parading at the Riverside Stables sales complex.

“I liked following Yes Yes Yes as a racehorse, I remember watching him in the Everest and coming second in the Golden Rose, so that led to me looking at her. And when I saw her, I thought, ‘I have to start with buying her’.”

Above average

Oh Yes She Did demonstrated enough ability that Springfield included her in a handful of horses he sent to Snowden.

“I just knew he would get the best out of her,” he said. “He has always said she is above average, which is always a good sign. Peter has got a high regard for her and has always praised her trackwork.”

There was evidently enough showing to steer her back to stakes grade after claiming the scalp of a midweek metropolitan maiden.

“She’s a beautiful filly,” Snowden said. “She has always been above average, and she is a great type. She arrived very well educated, all the hard work had been done. She has matured into a really wonderful filly and it was really good to see her do that on Saturday, that was a well above average performance.”

The barrier, Snowden agrees, made the filly work hard in the Quezette, but how deep she dug has connections crossing their fingers for a better draw in her next outing.

“From that awkward draw, she probably covered four or five more lengths than the rest of the field,” said Snowden. “I thought she handled it so well and she had so much courage to finish off in the manner that she did”

“If she had gotten a better barrier in the Quezette, then she would have finished a lot closer, and that race was won by a very nice filly,” Springfield said. “At the end of the day, it was very exciting for her to be our first black-type performer and she definitely has more to come.”

There will be no backing down from the first for Oh Yes She Did now, with the G2 Furious Stakes two weeks on Saturday circled as her next target.

“She pulled up extremely well,” Snowden said. “She arrived back in Sydney on Sunday night, she settled straight back in and hasn't left one bit of food. You wouldn’t have thought she had been away. Onto the Furious Stakes now.”

Getting people talking

Bangaloe Stud’s Julia Ritchie shares in the ownership of Yes Yes Yes and has been pleased to see the momentum he gathered over the past six months continuing at the same pace into the new season. The rollercoaster ride of a stallion’s early years can only be survived if they maintain momentum - and with momentum, people start talking.

“He has become more and more a topic of conversation,” Ritchie said. “Owners of his progeny have been connecting with and supporting one another, and there are more people taking notice now - ones who don't even own any offspring. Everyone is revelling in the horse’s success together. He has a bit of cheer squad behind him.

“Every time he has a runner, they don’t disgrace. If they’re not winning, they’re picking up a placing. He only had one runner on Monday and he won. He had one runner today (Tuesday) and that one ran second.”

It’s a slow burn as a stallion without a shooting star amongst your stock, but Ritchie has the faith that Yes Yes Yes can continue on the same trajectory. Part of the fun is that the entry price is a lot less low risk than for some stallions more prominent in the industry consciousness.

“The thing with him is, you can actually have that rare experience of getting your money back,” she said. “He stands for $16,500 including GST. He averages around $50,000 at the sales. Compared to yearlings that would set you back three, four, $500,000, or more and perform at a much lower level, you have a very good chance of getting a commercial return.

“And that’s not even factoring in the experience of winning. Whether it’s a race at Nowra or at Randwick, winning is an amazing experience and he has proven he can deliver that.”

As he enters his fourth season with runners, Yes Yes Yes has been striking at a very respectable 56% winners to runners for his career. His stakes performers sit at 6.9% black-type horses to runners. Average prize money per runner sits at the $55,000 mark, and despite being a diehard sprinter, his stock has delivered from 900-metre dashes out to 2200 metres.

“I see him as on a very trajectory to similar to Not A Single Doubt,” Ritchie said. “Not A Single Doubt had a bit of a slow start at stud, but once people realised the kind of horse he could throw and that they would all pay you back, they flocked to him. They both could produce good horses from a diverse range of mares as well.”

Lucky for Yes Yes Yes, he shares another important factor with Not A Single Doubt: people who truly, earnestly believe he can succeed.

The guts to keep going

What Ritchie saw in the run of Oh Yes She Did on Saturday is the same tenacity that her father brought to the track in his own career.

“He still holds the race record for the Todman Stakes, and he also still holds the track record over 1200 metres for his Everest win,” she said. “Those times haven’t been beaten in the last six years. Those are the qualities I see him passing on to his offspring.

Table: Five fastest finish times in the history of the Everest

“One thing about all of his horses, they know where the line is and they don't give up. You saw that on Saturday. You can see sometimes when horses don’t have the guts to keep going, but you never see that in any of his offspring. You can see it in his foals and weanlings as well. They bloom with hard work.”

With that in mind, the ‘cheer squad’ are confident to keep investing in the stallion as he continues his career at Gooree.

“He’s a quiet achiever,” Ritchie added. “We all aspire to win a Melbourne Cup or a Doncaster or an Everest, but the fact of it is, on sheer numbers, this horse is delivering a winning outcome far more frequently than there are chances to reach that echelon.

“He just keeps hitting them out of the park. I think he should be well and truly acknowledged as one of the better stallions around town that just delivers.”

A future that’s bright

Oh Yes She Did isn’t the only Yes Yes Yes offspring to have lofty goals this spring. Affirmative Action has returned to the work tab for Pam Gerard and won his first trial of the preparation on August 4. Gerard confirmed he will resume in the G1 Proisir Plate on September 5, and he also holds a nomination for the G1 Howdens Insurance Mile later in the month.

“He has come back bigger and more bullish, and mentally a little bit stronger,” she said after his trial. “We will be targeting a few of the bigger races through the season and hopefully pick something up.”

Firm Agreement has been back at Saturday metropolitan level and was narrowly beaten when fourth at Doomben on the weekend, back in his distance comfort zone. A fourth crop of 2-year-olds will hit the track this spring, hoping to help better the $4 million in progeny earnings that Yes Yes Yes recorded last season.

Having sold yearlings for up to $450,000 before, Yes Yes Yes’s 2026 yearlings sold for up to $225,000, and to names that have been on the buying sheet beforehand.

Proven Thoroughbreds and Charlotte Littlefield’s Hayfields Racing - the trainer of Yes Yoshi and Yes We Are, both of whom set track records at Sale on the same day in January - took home his top-priced colt, a full brother to Firm Agreement, at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.

Dave Morrissey's Cannon Hayes Stud and Goldfront Farm signed for his highest-priced filly, paying $200,000 for the first foal out of G3 Kembla Grange Classic winner Pretty Amazing (American Pharoah {USA}) at Inglis Easter.

Firm Agreement's dam Money Magic (So You Think {NZ}) has understandably been wedded to Yes Yes Yes for quite some time. She was joined in his 2025 book by G3 Kevin Hayes Stakes stakes victress Rich Fortune (Rich Enuff), Group performer Pioneer Lass (Stratum Star), and Camelle (NZ) (Camelot {GB}), dam of Yes Yoshi. The ownership group intends on sending the same calibre of mare to Yes Yes Yes again in 2026.

As for Springfield, he didn’t buy any more yearlings in 2026 and has been content to watch his 14 3-year-olds continue to develop. There are no concrete plans to buy in 2027, but if he changes his mind, he knows exactly where to look.

“I’m focusing on the horses I have right now,” Springfield said. “But if I look at buying yearlings next year, then I will definitely look at a couple by Yes Yes Yes.”