Extremely Lucky (+650) has broken through for his first win in nearly two years, as the five-year-old gelding recorded a nice victory on her return for the Will Clarken & Niki O'Shea stable in the inaugural running of the John Hawkes Stakes at Morphettville.
After spending 12 months with Chris Waller in Sydney, the son of Extreme Choice returned to the South Australian trainers to take his place in the Adelaide Racing Carnival over the next few weeks, and the change of scenery has paid dividends instantly.
Master Eight (+7000) made sure the race was run at a breakneck tempo as he took off mid-race to lead by three lengths over Celsius Star (+2000) and Sghirripa (+500) who settled behind the leader, and by the time they hit the top of the straight, those two took over to lead the field with 400m to go.
However, it was easy to see that the swoopers were going to run over the top of them in the concluding stages as they launched down the outside with their runs.
In a tight photo finish, Extremely Lucky just held on from a fast-finishing Sans Doute (+380), with What You Need (+360) and Grey River (+800) finishing in third and fourth place, respectively.
Will Clarken was clearly emotional after the win of Extremely Lucky during his post-race interview.
“He's a horse that we spruiked and and our stable really believes in data and he's the benchmark, the best horse we've trained in that sort of stuff, but has never got there,” Clarken said.
“Whether he will is yet to come. This was a Listed race and it was the right circumstances.
“There was good speed. Jamie rode him and I've been a believer that when you're working with a horse and things aren't going right, it's very hard to correct at the time.
“I got a bit of time when he went to Waller's just to think about things that I would do differently. I corrected every mistake I made and I'm able to train the horse a lot better now.
“He might have lost a bit of time there in his life for a life, but he's back now well and we'll give him a bit of time to see how he comes out of that.
“Group 1 horses win Group 1's. What he can do is quite astonishing and they have to do it race day.
“We're a long way from that, but he ticks a lot of boxes that a lot of horses can't do.
“It's great to haves the Hawkes' on course today. They're a famous South Australian racing family and it's great to see them back here.”
Jamie Kah was also very happy with the win post-race.
“It's good to see him back. He was a very, very smart horse, but so much went wrong with him,” Kah said.
“He was feeling the pinch near the line, but it was deserved.
“At the 400 metres I thought he was really smoking and I thought he'd easily win.
“He got to the 100 metres and had nearly had enough. Will told me he'd only had the one trial, but it's good to win on him.”