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McEvoy colt becomes the first winner for Yulong’s foundation sire

The fact his owners wanted to name Veight after a powerful engine was endorsement enough that the Grunt colt had above-average ability and the two-year-old backed it up with a brilliant debut performance at Pakenham on Thursday night.

The Tony and Calvin McEvoy -trained youngster earned the distinction of becoming the first winner for Yulong's foundation stallion when he cruised home by six lengths in the 1200m 2YO maiden that kicked off the card.

Veight earned the name – which is pronounced Vee-eight – via his efforts at home, which left Tony McEvoy happy that he paid $220,000 for him out of the Sledmere Stud draft at last year's Inglis Classic Sale.

"I never went to the sale to buy a Grunt, but he just had great swagger," McEvoy said.

"He's a beautifully-balanced horse. He's got great honesty about him and great movement. That's what tipped me over the edge."

Veight got to the races earlier than his sire, who made his debut in the May of his two-year-old season before being tipped out by Mick Price and returning as a three-year-old to string together a four-race winning streak that culminated with victory in the Group 1 Australian Guineas (1600m).

The son of O'Reilly added another 1600m Group 1 at Flemington, the Makybe Diva Stakes, before being retired to stud at Yulong.

Veight was the result of one of 178 covers in the spring of 2019 for Grunt, while he served 162 mares the following year before books of 76 and 90 the past two seasons.