By MICHAEL GUERIN and NZPA
CHRISTCHURCH - No horse had ever captured the New Zealand Trotting Cup in faster than four minutes - yesterday Yulestar had it won in two.
The pride of Taranaki racing thrashed his opponents in the $350,000 cup at Addington, giving our best pacers and two of Australia's brightest stars a lesson in how to inflict pain on your equine rivals.
In the process he penned a special chapter in New Zealand racing history, with his trainer, Lorraine Nolan, becoming the first woman to train a New Zealand Cup winner.
Usually, the cup takes four minutes to win, but this one was over in just two. Because that is how long it took Yulestar to reach the front from his back mark and once he was in front, especially with arch-rival Holmes D G settling last after galloping, it was simply a matter of how much he would win by.
The answer was three-and-a-quarter lengths and it just as easily could have been five.
"I knew at the 1600m we had it won," driver Tony Shaw said.
"And the further he went the more confident I got. He absolutely jogged it and I was smiling to myself at the 800m point."
While Shaw knew he had the 3200m cup won after just two minutes he still had to go through the rather pleasant formality of cutting the big horse loose at the top of the straight and riding home the wave of noise from the 20,000-strong crowd.
Yulestar stopped the clock at 3m 59.1s, well inside champion Chokin's world record of 3m 59.5s set in the 1993 Auckland Cup.
He could have gone a second faster.
"He did it all by himself and had no real pressure on in the middle stages," Shaw said. "If there had been something to force the issue on the last lap I think he would have paced around 3m 58s."
Yulestar, the pre-race favourite, was followed by third-fancied Bogan Fella and outsider Kym's Girl.
For the 33-year-old Shaw, the win was the dream he never dared dream, even on the long trips driving to and from budget-grade Central Districts race meetings in the horse float he uses to supplement his income.
Because of a lack of opportunities, Shaw, from Morrinsville, is not rated in the top echelon of New Zealand reinsmen, but he has shown with Yulestar he can handle the pressure of the big time, as well as any of the bigger names.
"This is one for the battlers and if I don't win another race in my life I have won the one I wanted. The New Zealand Cup is what it is all about."
For Nolan, a 60-year-old grandmother from Hawera, the chance to rewrite the history books was almost as special as winning the cup itself.
Nolan, who shares the ownership of Yulestar with husband Ron, said the thrill of winning "was a wonderful experience, especially considering the time."
She said more women should be encouraged to take a part in racing.
"I think it's great. I think men have accepted women more now."
The cup was first run in 1904.
"It is a great privilege to be the first female ... because it is the greatest race we have," said Nolan, who has two children and three grandchildren.
"But the horse did all the hard work."
Yulestar might have done the hard work yesterday, but Nolan had done the real work far earlier.
The galloping trainer took up harness racing as a hobby 10 years ago and runs one of New Zealand's smallest stables.
But inexperience did not stop her transforming Yulestar from a gangly gelding who could not help tripping over himself three years ago into the most feared stayer in Australasia.
Oh yeah, and the world record holder.
Racing: Trainer first woman to win NZ Cup
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