With three jump outs under his belt, Tony and Calvin McEvoy's Written Tycoon colt Lepolo jumped away the race favourite in the first at Ballarat on Thursday, charging clear for an impressive debut victory for owner/breeders Yulong.
In the seven-horse field, jockey Harry Coffey allowed the colt to settle back in the field, where the 3yo appeared comfortable in the run.
One of the first to make his run, Lepolo pulled out from behind those ahead of him, coming up to fourth with the Matt Cumani trained Corretto maintaining a nice gallop in the lead.
As the home corner was reached, Corretto still had top billing, but Lepolo was making up ground rapidly three wide to put himself into a challenge position.
Taking over with 300m to run, Coffey asked for an effort and the colt exploded away full of running, pulling clear for a dominate victory, taking out the 1400m race by three and a quarter lengths.
“He's a lovely colt,” said co-trained Calvin McEvoy post-race. “He's a colt that was bred by Yulong and sent to us, and he's always found things pretty easy.”
“Good movement, but he's also been a little bit behind in the brain. So very confident that he could come here and win today.
“I thought the only thing that maybe would get him beat is if he made some mistakes, which they can do on debut, but Harry rode him beautifully…he's a nice horse that will hopefully go through the grades now.
“He's had a couple of jump outs this prep, and they've been pretty quiet. He's a big loping action, and teaching those horses to quicken is sometimes the difficult part, but we gave him a piece of work at Flemington with an older, more seasoned gelding, and just wanted to get him off the bridle and chase and see how he went and I thought he went well and that gave us really good confidence to come here today and expect him to get the win.
“I think he's probably a 2,000 metre horse in time. I don't know how far we'll get this time in but he's a sound horse, big, strong, powerful horse.
“But we'll step him up and see what Harry's got to say. and hopefully he can be, you know, we think he's a Saturday class horse. Hopefully he gets there.
“He's a very laid-back horse, but one thing that everyone that's trialled him, the jockeys that have trialled him and the riders that have galloped him, have all said the same thing, that he gives them quite a good feel.”
Having his first day back from a break, Coffey started off in the best way possible.
“I actually trialled him two and a half weeks ago now and he was very green and I thought he's got good ability, but he'll probably find him out when he goes to the races.
“I've had two weeks off laying in bed and it's my first day back today and I was really impressed with the improvement he's taken while I've been gone.
“He handled himself really well at the races today and travelled nicely, quickened into the race well and put the race to bed very early in the straight.
“He's going the right way, he's trending well and he's a horse that I think will be better over further, so that's exciting for connections.
“He's got a beautiful big action and that allows him to cover ground more easily than other horses around him and he uses that action well.”
The Yulong bred and raced colt is the second winner from three to the races out of the Japanese bred Deep Impact mare Puppy Love, herself a sister to the G1 Tokyo Yushun winner Deep Brilliante, both out of the G3-winning Loup Savage mare Love And Bubbles.
Not served the year after foaling Lepolo, Puppy Love foaled a colt by Diatonic (Jpn) in the spring before being covered by G1 Blue Diamond winner Tagaloa.
The sire of 82 stakes winners headed by 18 individual G1 winners including Capitalist, the leading sire of winners for the 2025/2026 racing season, Written Tycoon’s 2026 stallion fee is listed as FOA.
