STRADBROKE HOPES TAKE A HIT AS YELLOW BRICK FINISHES SECOND IN THE FRED BEST CLASSIC

By Graham Potter | Saturday, May 27, 2023

One run … win or lose … doesn’t define a season for any racehorse, but, that being said, there was an understandable, fair level of disappointment for the Sears stable when Yellow Brick finished second in the Group 3 Fred Best Classic over 1400m at Eagle Farm on May 27.

The disappointment was not about that individual race result in itself … Yellow Brick turned in good performance … but, rather, it was the fact that the winner of the Fred Best (who turned out to be Hawaii Five Oh) gained a ballot free exemption into the $3 million Stradbroke Handicap, a race in which many people believed Yellow Brick would have been competitive.

Yellow Brick, who started as the $2.20 favourite in the Fred Best, settled in midfield in the first half of the race He was in eighth place, surrounded by other runners on straightening with all of six lengths to make up and Ben Thompson had to keep searching for runs in the home straight, shifting in marginally at first … and then out again … while all the time seeking to build momentum as he tracked into the race.

The deficit was down to four lengths with 200m left to run. At that stage the $61 chance End Assembly was still trying to make every post a winning one, but the mountain that Yellow Brock had to climb over those last 200m came in the form of the $4 second favourite Hawaii Five Oh, who had stolen a march on the Sears trained runner and who was now in full cry two lengths ahead.

Hawaii Five Oh slowly closed on End Assembly over the concluding stages, getting to the long time leader inside the last 75m, and, until those last 75m Hawaii Five Oh had also held Yellow Brick to that two length margin and it was only over the final 50m that Yellow Brick ws able to close the gap, but, it was too little, too late with the final winning margin being recorded as 0.75 lengths.

There would also be a natural further overflow of disappointment from there for the Sears camp.

Waiting for final acceptances for the Stradbroke in case there were any runners who didn’t stand their ground was a wait in hope … but, while Yellow Brick did move up the Order Of Entry to be listed as the sixth emergency acceptor, realistically, that put her too far back in the running for the stable to expect to get the chance to line up in Queensland’s richest race … and that chance did not eventuate.

The optimist will say there is always next year.

That there is!

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