More Solid Bricks in Waller’s Wall with YYY Nature Strip and Kolding
Chris Waller has not been resting on his Winx laurels.
Yes Yes Yes seems to be the rising star of the stable, but Nature Strip is hardly a second-class citizen, with three Group 1s on the racing resume.
Both will do some racing in the autumn campaign, but in a move that caught us unawares, as moves often do, he will take those two to Royal Ascot in June for the Queen’s meeting.
“Yes Yes Yes is going very well. He’s come back a stronger, more mature three-year-old,” Waller said.
Prior to winning the 2019 Everest, the horse with three names that routinely confounds our spelling and grammar checker ran second to Bivouac in the Group 1 races Golden Rose and Run To The Rose.
Yes Yes Yes’s losing margins in those two races combined was under half a length, so it is patently obvious that the Waller operation will see a steady supply of capable gallopers for the immediate, mid and long-term futures.
The list of Waller horses being prepared to resume is formidable.
Nature Strip will be in the Lightning Stakes and perhaps another race before he is shipped north for the King’s Stand, while YYY will try the Diamond Jubilee.
Also set to resume are Kolding, impressive in winning the Epsom Handicap and the very first Golden Eagle. Anyone who would like to see Kolding in the All-Star Mile had better cast his or her ballots, as Waller does not care for the uncertainty of preparing a horse with no guarantee of a start.
“I’ve got a slight leaning to the All Star Mile but how do you set a horse for the race if you don’t know he will get a start?” Waller said.
Waller, like most of us, is not entirely comfortable with uncertainty. Unlike the rest of us, however, he enjoyed certainty in spades when he knew he had a winner every time Winx started on of her final 33 races.