Dazzling win: Kyra ‘the Jewell’ Yuill and Freez’emoff claim 2020 Geraldton Cup

The history-maker known as ‘Yuill the Jewel’ was at her brilliant best in the history-making Geraldton Gold Cup today — adding the race to a Batavia Sprint she won “many years ago.” Kyra Yuill earned the tag of ‘Yuill the Jewel’ after being the first female hoop to win the Perth Cup — aboard Western Jewel on December 31, 2011. “There was no cup in 2012 (calendar), so some people say it was a 2011 cup, others say it was a 2012 cup,” Yuill said before boarding a Geraldton-Perth charter flight today. An hour earlier, she had steered the Graeme Hammarquist trained Freez’emoff first past the post in the $100,000 Geraldton Cup. On December 27, the trio pocketed the Walkaway Cup, also over 2100 metres. There wasn’t even a “family and friends” audience at Utakarra racecourse, the race run crowd-free because of COVID-19. “I knew at the 600 (metre mark) that provided I could get her out, she would win,” Yuill, 29, the leading apprentice in WA in 2010-11 and whose father Graham is a horse trainer at Burekup in the south-west, said. “My parents are very big supporters of mine, they follow me very closely. “Dad was once a mounted police officer, so he’d always been into horses, and he started breaking-in racehorses. “I started pony club when I was young and got into eventing and polocrosse. “I didn’t want to be a jockey, but I always loved going to the races.” Somewhere along the line, something changed, and now she is riding in hotter form than the temperature of the midday sun in the Sahara. “That was my best win here at Geraldton. I rode the winner of the (Batavia) Sprint for Michael Lane many years ago, but this is the highlight,” Yuill said. “Freeze’emoff is a nice horse and she deserved that. “I’ve had a pretty good season up here and it’s been good teaming up with Graeme. I hope, and would think, he’s as happy as I am tonight.” He was. “Mate, I’m on a natural high,” Hammarquist said on arriving at his Walkaway stables tonight. “This is as good as winning a Melbourne Cup. There’s something to be said about winning your hometown Cup. It’s fantastic. “Could say we’ve done that twice in a few months, lucky enough to win the Walkaway cup at the end of December, and now this.” Hammarquist said the mare, a product of a Frost Giant (USA)-Keep’emoff (NZ) mating and who is known at ‘Fuzzy’, had plenty of racing left in this campaign. “She had nearly a month off after the Walkaway Cup and she’s ready to go,” Hammarquist said. “She’s a clever mare who’s lightly raced. (The Cup win was her eighth from just 24 starts). I’ll let her settle for a week or so and we might even look at a race in Perth. “What will she get tonight? She will get whatever she likes for as long as she wants.” Caller Darren McAullay said the cup created its own excitement. “If there had been a crowd, they would have been on their toes,” McAullay said, part seriously, part sarcastically. However, he was more than serious in his praise for trainer and jockey. “(Graeme) Hammarquist had Freez’emoff peaked to perfection, it was a faultless preparation,” McAullay said. “And it was backed up by a terrific ride by (Kyra) Yuill, who’s had an unbelievably good season. “She’s getting the just rewards for her capacity to travel the length and breadth of the state to ride.” The minor placings were filled by Proxy and Defiantly, stablemates who are prepared by Garry Delane. Delane, who has returned to Geraldton following a stint at Albany, had previously trained a Geraldton Cup winner —but not at Geraldton. The Delane prepared Sir Donald won the 2001 race, when it was held at Ascot because of track issues at Geraldton. Freedom By Choice missed out on the money for the first time in a Geraldton Cup. The Mungrup Stud bred gelding, who sported the colours of veteran galloper Black Heart Bart, had been placed in the last three Geraldton cups. The race was run in 2:12.43, nearly five seconds outside the time set by multiple cup winner Tapdog, when he won the 2006 edition.