More Than Looks to Shuttle to Australia's Yulong

Yulong announced Feb. 20 an agreement to stand 2024 Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1T) winner More Than Looks, who will join their Victorian roster in 2025. By international sire of sires More Than Ready, the Del Mar winner will shuttle to Australia from Lane’s End near Versailles, Ky., in 2025, commencing Southern Hemisphere stud duties at Yulong. More Than Looks will continue to stand at Lane's End during the Northern Hemisphere breeding season. More Than Looks, who was trained by Cherie DeVaux for Victory Racing Partners, won a maiden special weight at second asking at Gulfstream Park as a 3-year-old in 2023 before notching a second victory in an allowance contest at Ellis Park. He followed up with a win in the 2023 Manilla Stakes (G3T) at Belmont Park, and it was onward and upward from there. He placed in a grade 2 at Saratoga Race Course, then won a black-type contest at Churchill Downs and concluded the campaign in the 2023 Breeders’ Cup Mile, in which he ran sixth of 13 behind the Charlie Appleby-trained Master of The Seas (IRE). Better still was to come as a 4-year-old last year, as More Than Looks finished runner-up in two grade 1s before bringing down the curtain in the best possible fashion in California, as he beat an international cast, which included 2023 Two Thousand Guineas (G1) hero Notable Speech (GB), in the Breeders’ Cup Mile under Jose Ortiz. With that victory, More Than Looks achieved his highest career Equibase Speed Figure of 130, while boosting his prize money haul to $1,870,715. “He’s an eye-catching horse that showed elite ability from day one,” said DeVaux. “His explosive turn of foot and competitive nature led to consistency at the highest level and ultimately resulted in him becoming a Breeders’ Cup champion.” Bred in Kentucky by Hinkle Farms, More Than Looks is out of the black type-winning Ladies' Privilege, a daughter of champion juvenile sire Harlan’s Holiday. She is a full sister to multiple graded stakes winner Takeover Target and hails from the family of grade 1 winner Critical Eye. More Than Looks’ sire, More Than Ready, has been very successful in Australia, producing precocious, high-class runners who have thrived in the conditions. His progeny have excelled at the highest level, with two Golden Slipper (G1) victors in Sebring and Phelan Ready, a Blue Diamond Stakes (G1) heroine in Samaready (AUS), as well as eight-time group 1 winner and 2012 champion older horse More Joyous (NZ) among the 96 stakes winners in More Than Ready’s Southern Hemisphere crops. “More Than Looks is by one of the best stallions we have seen shuttle to Australia in More Than Ready,” said Yulong’s general manager Vin Cox. “He’s extremely good looking, as his name suggests, and won some proper races, including the grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile. “Coupled with an outcross pedigree, More Than Looks provides huge appeal to the Australian market and we're delighted to stand him at Yulong in 2025.”