Rachel King will bid to become the first female jockey to win the Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap after Hawaii Five Oh secured their ticket to Queensland’s most prestigious race with a thrilling win.
Stradbroke’s week will get an extra touch of color after the three-year-old colt, part-owned by Larrikin businessman John Singleton, takes on his rivals in the Group 3 Fred Best Classic at Eagle Farm.
Fred Best offered the winner a golden ticket to the $3 million Stradbroke on June 10, meaning Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott have a great chance to win the race in successive years.
Waterhouse had never won a Stradbroke before Alligator Blood won in devastating fashion last year, but now he could get to two on the rebound.
Bookies reacted to Hawaii Five Oh’s Fred Best’s win by immediately cutting their odds to $5 on the Stradbroke bets.
Hawaii Five Oh keep Yellow Brick at bay in the Fred Best!
It’s in Stradbroke.@gaiwaterhouse1@nashhotpic.twitter.com/3i77AKern0
— 7Horse Racing ???? (@7horseracing) May 27, 2023
Hawaii Five Oh has been assigned the 49.5kg featherweight at Stradbroke and Bott told Racenet that three-time Group 1 winner Sydney driver King would have the ride.
No jockey has ever won the Stradbroke, although Tegan Harrison came very close when she finished runner-up at Temple Of Boom in the 2014 Stradbroke won by River Lad.
Hawaii Five Oh had burst into the Stradbroke conversation when he was a runaway winner of the Hawkesbury Guineas, but he only sealed his place in Saturday’s Fred Best’s last chance saloon race.
Hawaii Five Oh is superbly bred by champion sire I Am Invincible, out of Aloha, who inspired the colt’s name, after the hit 1960s TV series.
Singleton runs the Hawaii Five Oh in partnership with radio host Ray Hadley. The expensive colt was bred by Singleton’s partner Gerry Harvey.
Starting $4 in the Fred Best, Hawaii Five Oh rode well behind speed and always seemed to be cruising, while $2.20 favorite Yellow Brick was further behind than expected.
Rachel King will ride Hawaii Five Oh in the Stradbroke Handicap. Image: Getty Images
Yellow Brick closed in on home to finish second but now looks unlikely to make it to the Stradbroke course, dashing the hopes of Toowoomba trainers Tony and Maddysen Sears and jockey Ben Thompson.
But the winner takes the spoils and Bott said the penny was down for the Hawaii Five Oh who will now give the Stradbroke a serious shake up.
“He’s doing well at the weights at Stradbroke and should improve today,” Bott said.
“He is certainly a lovely horse, of a beautiful and imposing physical type as we saw him in the yard.
“Nash was confident throughout the whole race, you could see it.
“He came out with an open mind about where he was going to be.
“He showed very good gate speed today and put himself there.
“Nash was able to let him find a good rhythm and he was able to come out at the right time and he was strong at the end.”
Rawiller said that he was proud of Hawaii Five Oh, whom he declared to be “the real deal” from Stradbroke’s point of view.
Tony Sears indicated that if Yellow Brick did not make it to the Stradbroke course, he would go to the Group 3 Gunsynd Classic on Stradbroke day and then potentially the Winx Guineas on the Sunshine Coast.
