ANNIKE BYE HANSEN
Racehorse Trainer
annikebyehansen.com
Second, yet again
Youonlyliveonce - mister consistency
20 Sep 23: Celebrating winners is more fun, of course it is, but isn't it time to applaud Youonlyliveonce for his incredibly game and consistent form? Given that he is mainly competing in handicaps, they way he tries hard every single time he becomes a bit of a law unto himself - as he will not be dropped in the handicap. And how could he? The handicapper can't drop ultra consistent horses like Youonlyliveonce, who finished second for the sixth time this season, and for the twelfth time overall, when splitting two other in-form runners, Spirit of Cimarron and Canmore, in the Vortex Handicap over 1370 metres on the turf course this afternoon. Ridden by Andreas Tapia Dalbark, Youonlyliveonce made his 39th racecourse appearance with this run, and he has finished in the top three no fewer than 24 times, with 6 wins to his name. He is closing in on a million in total earnings.
Youonlyliveonce captures the Øvrevoll Sprint Cup
13 July 23: The task; top weight of 68kg, soft ground, and four rivals in the mix that had won won this season. None of these factors could stop Youonlyliveonce in the Øvrevoll Sprint Cup. Ridden by Andreas Tapia Dalbark, he once more showed his gameness and versatility, winning the race by a length from Herewegodandy - who had defeated him by a length when they met on the dirt track in April. Madi Bajna finished third, having run fifth when Starlight Song beat Youonlyliveonce last week.
Youonlyliveonce's placings on home soil this year now read 2nd, 2nd, 2nd and 1st. Life is always tough for such an honest handicapper, as his weigh assignments will not offer any leniency. This son of Sidestep keeps on delivering though, and today's success was his sixth career win from 34 starts. He has been second or third 14 times, giving him a remarkable 59% top three record. The Øvrevoll Sprint Cup was worth 68.250 kroner to the winner and Youonlyliveonce has earned 861.556 kroner to date. GS
Stabell talk 2023
Youonlyliveonce - versatile and consistent
A son of the little known sire Sidesteps (a dual Group 2 winning son of top class sprinter Exceed And Excel), Youonlyliveonce took another step up in 2022. Going up against the fastest turf performers in Scandinavia on a couple of occasions, he fared well enough to be nominated in the Sprinter of The Year category – alongside his stable companion General de Vega and Could Be King. Just to be mentioned with these two stars was some achievement for Youonlyliveonce, who improved his best handicap rating from 86 in 2021 to 89 last year. It's when horses start creeping up towards the crucial 90-mark that the going gets really tough. Such performers will often be burdened by top weights in handicaps and thus forced to run against the elite on conditions events and stakes races. Youonlyliveonce won twice during our most recent campaign, but his best run was probably when he grabbed second behind Could Be King in the Giant Sandman Polar Cup (LR) at Øvrevoll in August. One of the strong undercard events on Derby day, the Polar Cup, contested over 1370 metres, represented a step up in class for Youonlyliveonce. He took it all in his stride, and came home as a game runner-up. He could never pose a serious threat to the favourite, who beat him by 2 ¾ lengths at level weights, but Youonlyliveonce had some smart performers well behind him and suddenly Väsby Häst had two high class sprinters on their hands. He was not able to reproduce the form in the Bro Park Sprint Championship (LR) in September (finished eighth, 6 lengths behind Could Be King) but he gained another Listed placing when third in the one-mile Arnifinn Lunds Minneløp back on home soil in October. Like A King captured that event from Wishformore.
Youonlyliveonce's main assets are his consistency and versatility. He kept his form well to the end of the season, winning a handicap over 1730 metres on the dirt track 18 days after the Arnfinn Lunds. Running off 88, he was conceding weight all round and ran out a game winner from Monjazaat, with Tambora Queen third and We Got The Boss fourth. Of the race's total pot of 80,000 kroner, 66,400 went to horses trained at Skoganstallen. Looking at the form of the one that denied Annike a clean sweep, we see that Monjazaat is no slouch. She has three wins to her name and was beaten just a neck when second to Flambeau Rouge in the 2021 Norwegian Oaks. Giving Monjazaat 3kg, Youonlyliveonce beat her by half a length. He wasn't done yet, however. Three and a half weeks further into the autumn, he turned up for a competitive mile handicap on the dirt track at Jägersro Galopp, and finished second, beaten less than two lengths by Plantstepsdream. This was Youonlyliveonce's 13th start in 2022. He finished in the top three on no fewer than nine occasions. His first win of the year came in a sprint handicap on the turf course in early June, a race he won narrowly from Herewegodandy.
With strong form both on turf and dirt, and proven from 1170 metres to 1600 metres, this six-year-old still has many options and, although he meets the season on a handicap mark that makes things a notch more difficult, there's no reason to doubt that Youonlyliveonce can do well also in 2023. GS 230123
Winning once is nice,
twice truly delightful
20 Oct 22: There's nothing wrong with winning twice in a season, especially if your name is Youonlyliveonce! He has run some rock solid races against top flight performers, and this evening he gained his second win of the year by beating Monjazaat and Tambora Queen in the Birkebeinern Handicap, run over 1750 metres on the dirt track. Youonlyliveone earned 40,000 kroner for this empathic success, pushing his 2022-earnings to a healthy 324.060 kroner.
Yukochan made a promising debut in the juvenile maiden, finishing second to the hot favourite, Soulofchess. Another fine day at the races for "Team ABH".
Another raceday - another double
09 June 22: Annike's team is on an absolute roll. Just a week after orchestrating a fine double with General de Vega and Hard One To Please, she repeated the feat with I Rest My Case capturing Brukseier Eivind Lyches Minneløp, and Youonlyliveonce taking the Heureux Handicap, after running second to General de Vega last time out. The latter was backed as if defeat was out of the question, going off as the 1.20-favourite under jockey Jacob Johansen. Those who took such short odds did get a scare, as Youonlyliveonce showed battling qualities to win by a nose, hard pressed by the second favourite, Herewegodandy. I Rest My Case was also odds-on to succeed, and did so in altogether more comfortable way - scooting home by 5 1/4 lengths from Byckybelle, with Queen of Antarktis 3 1/2 lengths further adrift in third place. This was a homebred event so perhaps we should not get too carried away - though I Rest My Case's form is beginning to look quite smart.
Stabell talk 2022
Youonlyliveonce - can he bounce back?
A son of Sidesteps, Youonlyliveonce is a runner that has, during his first two seasons at least, lived up to his name – by making the most of his existence and winning races. He hit the ground running as a youngster, when he was successful at Jagersro in Malmoe and at Bro Park outside Stockholm. He followed up with a third trip to the winners' circle as a three-year-old, when he was successful once more at Bro Park. Then, in 2021, came the drought. Youonlyliveonce failed to win last year. Then again, he only raced four times du to an injury interrupting his campaign, so the opportunities were not really there. Can he bounce back this year?
Fresh opportunities await, as he has joined Annike's strong team, after having been trained by Ylva Brandt and Lars Kelp in Sweden. Youonlyliveonce had a brief look at Ovrevoll in his first season, when he ran unplaced in Norsk Kriterium. That effort told us little to suggest whether he will be suited to the courses in Norway. That he has done well over different tracks in Sweden augurs well, however. It's not a given that Ovrevoll will be to his liking but he appears to be more adaptable than most horses.
His first win came in maiden company at Bro Park in the early autumn of 2019. Tacking 1200 metres over a good turf course, he beat Garcia readily by 2 ½ lengths that day. Fast forward almost three months, right to the tail end of the season, and he stepped up on his maiden winning form to capture the Manoustieloepning at Jagersro, this time showing sharp form on dirt – again racing over 1200 metres. Jan-Erik Neuroth was in the irons and he he steered Youonlyliveonce home for a comfortable 6-length win worth 100,000 kronor. Maid had to settle for a non-threatening second, while subsequent Derby winner Bullof Wall Street finished third. It was a taking performance by the winner but also a run that meant expectations would be high in his three-year-old season.
He trained on well into his sophomore days and proved up to winning in tough company again that autumn, taking a highly competitive Guldhandicap over 1400 metres at Bro Park, ridden by Jacob Johansen. Youonlyliveonce produced yet another game effort to pip Lush Lashes in a tight finish, as Miss Maybach was a close third. Lush Lashes, who carried 3.5 kg less than Youonlyliveonce, is a winner of nine races and a well known horse in Sweden. That Youonlyliveonce was up to beating this accomplished rival came as no big surprise though; after all he had been a good runner-up in Mischa Khans Minnesloepning seven weeks earlier, splitting Hot Bagatelle and Globemaster in a race where Swedish 2,000 Guineas winner Everest Voice checked in fourth. The distance was 1600 metres on dirt.
Lush Lashes and Youonlyliveonce met also last season, when Lush Lashes gained revenge in a Guldhandicap over 1400 metres / turf at Bro Park. This time, Youonlyliveonce had to concede 7 kg and it turned out to a bit too much. He was the best horse on the day, however, going down by just a length, narrowly ahead of the third placed My Motivate Girl, who was a length better than Herewegodandy, a Norwegian raider taking fourth place in the contest.
Youonlyliveonce has quite an international pedigree. Bred in France, he is sporting Australian lines in his top half with European lines in the bottom half. His sire, the Exceed and Excel son Sidestep, was a high class two-year-old down under, where he won the Pago Pago Stakes (G2) and ran second in the prestigious Golden Slipper Stakes (G1), both over 1200 metres at Rosehill. Youonlyliveonce's dam, Feelin Foxy, is a daughter of high class sprinter Foxhound. Feelin Foxy was a very useful, and incredibly durable, sprint handicapper in England, winning 9 of her 83 races and finishing second or third on no fewer than 32 occasions. She is also the dam of Karaktair, a mile winner by Olympic Glory, and Feelin Dickie, a sprint winner by Dick Turpin. Feelin Foxy's half-brother Josh (Josr Algarhoud) was a smart sprinter who won twice, ran placed twice in Listed company and was officially rated 100. There's a lot of speed in Youonlyliveonce's immediate family but he has himself shown good form at up to 1600 metres. Proven on dirt and turf, this is a horse that has plenty of options and it will be interesting to see how he gets on during the 2022 season. GS 220207