Rachel King will attempt to become the first female jockey to win the Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap after Hawaii Five Oh secured his ticket to Queensland’s most prestigious race with an exciting win.
Stradbroke week will have an extra splash of colour after the three-year-old colt, part-owned by larrikin businessman John Singleton, put his rivals to the sword in the Group 3 Fred Best Classic at Eagle Farm.
The Fred Best offered the winner a golden ticket into the $3m Stradbroke on June 10, meaning Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott have a gilt-edged chance to score the race in successive years.
Waterhouse had never won a Stradbroke before Alligator Blood won in devastating fashion last year but could now make it two on the bounce.
Bookmakers reacted to Hawaii Five Oh’s Fred Best win by immediately slashing his odds to $5 in Stradbroke betting.
Hawaii Five Oh holds off Yellow Brick in the Fred Best!
He’s into the Stradbroke.@GaiWaterhouse1@nashhotpic.twitter.com/3i77AKern0
— 7HorseRacing ???? (@7horseracing) May 27, 2023
Hawaii Five Oh has been allocated the featherweight of 49.5kg in the Stradbroke and Bott told Racenet that three-time Group 1 winning Sydney rider King would have the ride.
No female jockey has ever won the Stradbroke, although Tegan Harrison came extremely close when she finished runner-up on Temple Of Boom in the 2014 Stradbroke won by River Lad.
Hawaii Five Oh had stormed into the Stradbroke conversation when being a runaway winner of the Hawkesbury Guineas but only sealed his spot in the last-chance saloon race of Saturday’s Fred Best.
Hawaii Five Oh is superbly bred by champion sire I Am Invincible, out of Aloha who provided the inspiration for the name of the colt, after the hit TV series of the 1960s.
Singleton races Hawaii Five Oh in partnership with radio broadcaster Ray Hadley. The expensive colt was bred by Singleton’s mate Gerry Harvey.
Hawaii Five Oh, who started $4 in the Fred Best, travelled well just behind the speed and always looked to be cruising while $2.20 favourite Yellow Brick was further back in the field than expected.
Rachel King will ride Hawaii Five Oh in the Stradbroke Handicap. Picture: Getty Images
Yellow Brick zoomed home to finish second but now appears unlikely to make the Stradbroke field, dashing the hopes of Toowoomba trainers Tony and Maddysen Sears and jockey Ben Thompson.
But to the winner go the spoils and Bott said the penny had dropped for Hawaii Five Oh who will now give the Stradbroke a serious shake.
“He gets in well in the weights in the Stradbroke and should take improvement out of today,” Bott said.
“He’s certainly a lovely horse, a beautiful physical type and imposing as we saw in the yard.
“Nash was confident throughout the run, you could see.
“He went out there open minded with where he was going to be.
“He showed really good gate speed today and put himself up there.
“Nash was able to let him find a nice rhythm and was able to get out at the right time and he was strong late.”
Rawiller said he was proud of Hawaii Five Oh who he declared was “the real deal” from a Stradbroke point of view.
Tony Sears indicated that if Yellow Brick did not make the Stradbroke field, he would instead go to the Group 3 Gunsynd Classic on Stradbroke day and then potentially the Winx Guineas on the Sunshine Coast.