The little mare with the great name blitzed all during the 1957/58 Ellerslie Cup Carnivals

Yaahabeebe had a catchy name but her rivals invariably found the exciting sprint mare hard to catch. The flying filly, who raced in the late 1950s, was trained at Ellerslie and excelled on her home track. Yahabeebe won nine feature races at Ellerslie, including successive wins in the Railway Handicap, the premier open sprint held on the course. A daughter of the Epsom winner, Mid-day Sun, who stood in New Zealand late in his stud career, Yahabeebe was trained by Merv Ritchie at Ellerslie and owned by Auckland businessman, Lou Fisher - brother of Ra Ora Stud founder, Sir Woolf Fisher. Ritchie moved north from Southland to train in Auckland and handled many horses for the rich Fletcher family, including top juvenile, Boston and Wellington Cup winner, Rustler. He also trained the brilliant racehorses, Terrific and Sydney Cup winner Apollo Eleven during his career.

She usually set the pace and earned a big following among the New Zealand Racing public while recording 13 wins and six second placings from 22 starts. Her other major wins at Ellerslie came in the way of the Foal Stakes Champagne Stakes and Royal Stakes as a two-year-old, and two wins in the King's Plate and the Great Northern Challenge Stakes. The Royal Stakes is now a 2000m event for 3YO fillies but back then it was open to two and three-year-olds and run over 1200m. The Railway is New Zealand's major sprint race held over the summer Christmas carnival and is one of New Zealand's oldest sprint features, running for more than 132 years.

Yaahabeebe was first aimed at the Railway as a 3YO but had to bypass the meeting through illness. She made amends by winning the Railway in the next two seasons breaking the Ellerslie track record when winning in 1957, setting a time of 1:10.2. A year later the mare carried the equivalent of 60.5kg from an outside barrier to win the race again. Even her regular rider, Grenville Hughes doubted her ability to pull it off and switched to another mount. Bill Smith replaced Hughes on the topweight and quickly established a sizable lead, sizzling to the front from out wide. She was still clear by a length and a half by the finish and it is still one of the biggest weights ever carried to victory in the prestigious sprint race. Yahabeebe had been freshened since returning from a Sydney campaign and was set the difficult task of taking on three races in seven days. She failed in the 2000m Clifford Plate on the middle day, but bounced back to win the King's Plate (1600m), beating the high class three-year-olds Fountaincourt and Up And Coming to record her second win in the WFA feature. The Year before, Yahabeebe had won the race by 7L in the remarkable time of 1:35 flat.

She set a New Zealand record time over 1400m in the North Island Challenge Stakes at Trentham and lowered the time again when winning the Great Northern Challenge Stakes. Yahabeebe made three trips across the Tasman but never enjoyed the travel, failing to display her best, however she did win an Open sprint in Sydney carrying 60.5kg, was placed in a Craven Plate and ran 2nd in the Stradbroke Handicap in Brisbane carrying 57kg.

NZ RACE RECORD - 22: 13-6-0

Railway Stakes (1957, 1958)

King's Plate (1958, 1959)

North Island Challenge Stakes

Great Northern Challenge Stakes