It's Queensland's greatest race and just like Australia's other famous handicaps “The Straddie” holds a special place in the punters heart with a couple of wily old warriors at the top of the weights and mixed formlines making for intrigue aplenty as we search for the winner!
It's also the Sunshine State's richest racing prize (outside Magic Millions) worth $3m in stakes, and perhaps more importantly, the winner's name is engraved for evermore in the annals of Australian turf history.
As is the name Stradbroke - the race being so called in honour of the titled Earls of Stradbroke whose family motto is Je Vive En Espoir ( I live in hope) - an appropriate association with horse racing!
The racing-mad Lords of Stradbroke were intrepid characters addicted to exploring, governing, acquiring estates, breeding and racing Thoroughbreds and all the usual aristocratic pursuits.
The family were involved in the colonies from the earliest days, but the 4th Earl Henry John Rous who arrived in Australia in 1827 was particularly influential
In later life this Earl of Stradbroke became the British Jockey Club handicapper and inventor of the weight for age scale.
The inaugural edition of the race which would become fondly referred to as “The Straddie” was a six furlong event. It was run in 1890 and won by Pyrrhus.
In 1953 the distance was raised to seven furlongs and from 1972 onwards has been a 1400m contest.
Between 1982 and 1988 the race was briefly known as the Elders Handicap ( one imagines the former Earls turning in their graves at this commercial vulgarity).
The 1,400 metre race and track record is 1:20.2 established by the flying machine Toledo in 1998.
It was once not unusual for two year olds to contest the Stradbroke and five were successful - Sweetheart, Fitz Grafton, Line Gun, Amberdown and fittingly the last in 1958 was the mighty Rego daughter Wiggle, a small filly built like a colt who had won the now G1 Champagne Stakes by six lengths before lining up in the Stradbroke. Altogether the iron- tough and famously ill-tempered Wiggle won fourteen races in Australia and six more in America.
No horse has won three Stradbrokes but dual winners of the great race up until 1950 were Babel, Gold Tie, Highland, Petrol Lager and Lucky Ring.
In 1984 Daybreak Lover took the prize, then retired to serve a full season at stud and returned to the track in 1986 to win again - the brilliant son of Namnan still the only horse to win non-consecutive Straddies. He sired some pretty good horses too!
Then in 1992 came the race with what most would regard as the iconic Stradbroke finish - legendary Kiwi Rough Habit was shooting for back to back wins in the race with “The Pumper” JA Cassidy on board.
Rough Habit had to jump from barrier 18 and lug 58.5kg. As the field turned for home the pair were famously, last and marooned behind a logjam of tiring horses.
Betting tickets would have been cast to the wind like confetti by despairing punters at this point, but neither Roughie or Cassidy were the kind of characters who had any truck with a quitting mentality.
With 200m to go Rough Habit began to accelerate and weave, finding runs where none seemingly existed, Cassidy riding like a demon, horse and hoop united in fierce determination.
“Weight will stop a train” they say, but it doesn't have much effect on a missile which is what Rough Habit was that day.
The incredulous cry of racecaller Wayne Wilson as he spies the blur on the rail in the shadows of the post is always spine tingling no matter how many times it is heard.
“And look at Rough Habit!”
He had to beat a couple of great sprinters in Barossa Boy and Schillaci, but Roughie got up to win his second Stradbroke.
The charismatic Black Piranha was the last horse to claim multiple wins in the race in 2009/10.
Bart Cumming's freakish mare Dane Ripper was the 1997 Stradbroke heroine and went on to win both a Cox Plate and an Australian Cup, a Memsie Stakes and a Manikato Stakes.
Fittingly the race named in her honour is now the curtain raiser to the main event on Stradbroke Day.
In 2002 two great Queenslanders Show A Heart and Falvelon were both in the ruck turning for home and seemed out of contention, but the pair of thrilling speedsters rocketed to the line side by side to the roar of the parochial crowd. It was the distinctive blazed face of Show A Heart just in front on the line from his great rival.
Once retired those two fine stallions continued a more friendly spirit of competition at their home Glenlogan Park Stud, where they were often observed having fun burning up and down their adjacent paddocks for old times sake.
Nobody thought Linton, the remarkable grey son of Galileo, could win the Stradbroke.of 2013.
Nobody except his trainer John Sadler who had hatched the plan many months before.
While domiciled in the Lloyd Williams camp Linton had at one time been a strong Melbourne Cup fancy. He had won the G2 Herbert Power over 2400m and been runner up in the G1 BMW at the same distance.
It's hardly the profile of a Stradbroke winner, but Sadler had long believed the horse was a natural sprinter miler and trained him that way when he got the opportunity.
All the punters' money was on Queensland's iron horse Buffering who had placed the previous year. But again the mighty Buff was to be denied.
Linton came with a blistering turn of foot to win and put to rest any suggestion that his sire Galileo would get nothing but plodmobiles in Australia - we can all laugh at that idea now.
Buff never got his Stradbroke but he did go on to claim a swag of G1 races.
2022 was memorable for the emotional return of turf warrior Alligator Blood from what had seemed career - ending injury to G1 glory as he stormed home to win the Straddie from Private Eye and Rothfire - who both line up in this edition of the great race!
Last year three year old filly Stefi Magnetica made a special piece of Stradbroke history when she beat champion Bella Nipotina to win, thus following in the hoofprints of her dam Mid Summer Music who was victorious in 2012.
In 2025 a full field of 18 runners face the starter on a drying soft 5 surface with emergency Coleman sneaking into the field following the scratching of Firestorm.
I’ve left out the favourite War Machine, good horse that he is - because oddly enough no BRC Sprint winner has ever gone on to win the Stradbroke, though many have placed. And I'm just not sure that the formlines around him are the ones to follow.
Top Tip: BOSUSTOW
Three year old colt Bosustow is half brother to superstar mare Amelia's Jewel. He has always shown well above average talent, placed at only his third start in the G2 VRC Sires Produce and G1 JJ Atkins here at two years.
Returning as a Spring three year old the Annabel and Rob Archibald trained son of Blue Point raced well at stakes level and was unlucky not to finish that prep with a win, going down narrowly in the Listed Amanda Elliott 1400m at Flemington.
He then headed north and won the MM 3YO Guineas on the Gold Coast, crossed the ditch and chased home Here To Shock at Te Rapa in the G1 BCD Group Sprint 1400m then had a nice little break.
This time in he returned in devastating style and bolted in the G3 Gold Coast Guineas 1200m by six lengths, before a pass mark last start at Doomben, but was slow to recover after the race and his trainer has since said he was a little underdone. He's been set to peak for this race.
Blue Point was a champion - the only horse to have won three G1 Ascot sprints - and the young stallion has made a spectacular start to his stud career in the NH.
It's Blue Point's time to shine down here. He was at his best as an older horse and while the son of Shamardal can get a classy two year old such as Bosustow and Cool Archie's conqueror in the G3 BJ McLachclan Stakes in the filly Icarian Dream, his progeny can only improve in leaps and bounds at three and beyond.
The dam of Bosustow and Amelia's Jewel is the Irish bred Bumbasina by Canford Cliffs - that colt was a hugely precocious juvenile winning the Coventry Stakes by six lengths and training on to be a champion miler. His sire Tagula was seen to advantage early as well.
He is a successful sire and has the bloodlines to excel as a broodmare sire - Amelia's Jewel prime evidence of that!
Blue Point stood at Darley beside Too Darn Hot who exploded out of the blocks in Australia, thus leaving his barn mate somewhat in the shade, but the prepotency and quality of Blue Point is not in question.
He is the sire of G1 winning juvenile and Champion 3YO miler Rosallion, and Champion sprinters Kind Of Blue and Big Evs (Breeders Cup Juvenile)
Blue Point has Bold Ruler x 2 through his dam and has nicked very successfully with mares strong in that blood on their damline.
Bosustow's dam Bumbasina brings plenty to that party - her damsire Oratorio descends from a daughter of Bold Ruler's son Chieftain, while her second damsire is the mighty Rainbow Quest - she carries Mill Reef through Shirley Heights and herself is a direct descendant of Nasrullah's influential daughter Courtesy.
This pedigree also features linebreeding to Try My Best through his sons Waajib and Last Tycoon and creates the speed inducing Shamardal / Danehill nick.
Notably Bosustow has the winkers off and blinkers fitted for this big assignment. I think he's going to be well suited by the cracking speed. Zac Lloyd takes his first ride on the colt, who will jump from barrier 11 with just 51.5kg on his back
It's the same “maiden voyage” scenario for Zac which saw him steer another three year old Stefi Magnetica to triumph last year.
Can Zac become the first hoop to win back to back Straddies since JA Cassidy on Rough Habit? Can a three year old win it two years in a row?
A $900,000 yearling from the Segenhoe Stud draft at the 2023 MM Gold Coast, Bosustow was purchased by Rosemount Alliance / Suman Hedge Bloodstock (FBAA) and Annabel Neesham Racing with big things in mind.
He has proven he's up to G1 level - the handsome colt will set himself up for a stud career if he wins this.
Next best: PRIVATE EYE
From the up and coming young horse to the other end of the scale - the seven year old turf warrior that is Private Eye. Almost $12 million in the bag and counting!
The 2019 Adelaide MM graduate from the draft of Ambergate Farm cost a mere $62,500 when he was picked up by his trainer Joe Pride and Proven Thoroughbreds.
I really like that the old boy is tackling this first up.
It's the first time Private Eye has resumed from a spell at 1400 - when fresh he has won the G2 Gilgai over 1200 carrying 60, placed at G1 WFA over 1300 carrying 59, fourth in the Newmarket carrying 58, beat Overpass in the G2 The Shorts, second in the G1 Lightning and so forth.
He's true WFA class, a G1 winning miler and it took a rival as good as Alligator Blood to beat him in this race in 2022 when he carried 57kg , the same weight he will carry this year.
That was his only attempt at this race. After two Everest placings as well along the journey, it might be that this is Private Eye's long awaited major sprint victory and it would be a result so well deserved.
He's that rare class of horse with a turn of foot that isn't overly diminished by big weights, and he's a great first up performer.
No getting away from the fact Private Eye is now seven - but Joe Pride is such a savvy trainer you have to have confidence in his approach to training the horse he knows so well at this age and stage of his career.
It's tough as the toppie, but they are usually around the money in the Stradbroke and history says Private Eye is highly competitive in handicaps with big weights.
This isn't a Straddie field for the ages and that's no disrespect to any horse involved it just means Private Eye has a real chance of winning this one.
With familiar pilot Nash Rawiller on board from barrier 10 he should get a good run and get his chance.
Private Eye is by the much missed stallion Al Maher, by Danehill out of the Don't Say Halo mare Dancing Show and thus a member of the famous Best In Show tribe. He was a particularly good sire of sprinter milers and renowned for the toughness and durability of his progeny.
The dam of Private Eye is Confidential Queen by Shamardal - unplaced on the track she subsequently became a bargain $13,000 Inglis Broodmare Select Sale pickup in 2015 by Goodwood Farm, who have bred all her foals.
She had the pedigree to become a top producer and so she has proved to be.
Her four foals to race are all winners - her first was Royal Witness (g by Star Witness, 6 wins, over $400k), then she hit the jackpot with Private Eye.
She is also the dam of Private Eye's full brother Secret Spy (2 wins) and the very promising King's Secret (Shalaa) recently featured as One To Watch.
Confidential Queen is a grand daughter of Snippets Lass by Snippets, and thus a member of one of Australia's best producing families whose flag bearer was the champion racehorse and magnificent sire Snitzel who sadly passed away this week.
Matriarch of this tribe is Snow Finch by the great Storm Bird.
It's a family defined above all by precocious speed and class.
Confidential Lass is out of Royal Snippets by Royal Academy, a 2 x winning half sister to Snitzel, and to successful sire Hinchinbrook (Fastnet Rock), to Snitzel's full sister Viennese (stakes winner, dual stakes producer) and to Wiener (More Than Ready) stakes placed and dam of G1 Epsom Hcp hero Redeiner.
Going back to Confidential Queen, she is bred 5f x 3m to Blue Hen Crimson Saint, dam of Royal Academy by Nijinsky and of Terlingua - dam of Storm Cat by Storm Bird, both among the greatest of Northern Dancer sons.
Turning to Private Eye's damsire Shamardal it is interesting that he is primarily a source of speed in this role and the progeny of Confidential Queen are a great example of that.
The former Champion 2-Year-Old of Europe’s own precocity lives on most notably through his daughters, with the vast majority of their stakes winning progeny successful up to 1400m.
Private Eye is bred on the Danehill/Shamardal nick and is bred 4m x 5m Northern Dancer, both lines through his son Nijinsky 4f x 4m.
A notable feature of his pedigree is linebreeding to the Blue Hen Bleebok through her descendants Roberto and Advocator.
It will be some training feat if Joe Pride can pull this off, but he's saddling up the class horse of the field.
Roughie: ROBUSTO
This five year old son of Churchill out of the very good Redoute's Choice mare She's Clean is a G2 winner at a mile of the race formerly known as the Villiers, now the $2m ATC Ingham named in honour of the late Jack Ingham and his family - a singularly fitting victory given that the gelding is a product of their breeding program!
Robusto attempts G1 level for the first time under the guidance of master trainer Bjorn Baker.
He commenced his racing career with Chris Waller, and eventually was offered for sale by his breeders and owners, secured for $160,000 online by Derby Bloodstock from the Inglis 2024 September (early) sale.
Robusto is the third foal and first winner for Group III winning Redoute’s Choice mare She’s Clean, who was bought by the Inghams for $300,000 from the 2010 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale.
She’s Clean was trained by Waller and went on to win over $700,000 on the track.
She’s Clean is a blue-blood being closely related to Group I winning Redoute’s Choice mares Abbey Marie and Absolutely as well as dual Group I winning $2.2million earner Nettoyer.
This horse has taken time and is a talent but only now seems to be reaching his full potential. He was excellent in the Buffering at the 1400m here in December, second to Transatlantic who won the Spear Chief here recently.
Looking back through Robusto's form he gives the impression at least, that he has been a slightly tricky horse to get the hang of distance wise. He isn't a superstar but he is a very genuine performer with more than a touch of class as you'd expect for an individual of his breeding.
Robusto's royally bred sire Churchill is by breed shaper Galileo from the elite Storm Cat daughter Meow out of the champion sprinting filly Airwave, who had a half sister also a G1 winning sprinter.
Churchill's full sister Clemmie is Galileo's only G1 winner over 6 furlongs.
Matings with such high expectations don't always produce the hoped for results but this one did as Churchill became the European champion sprinter miler of his generation at both two and three years, with four G1s to his credit including two Guineas and placings in several more, from 7f to a mile.
For the Coolmore empire Churchill is a G1 sire in both hemispheres. In Australia his best are the G1 miler Attrition, Imperialist and the tough -as-nails stayers First Immortal and More Felons.
His daughter Blue Rose Cen became only the fourth filly in fifty years to complete the French fillies Triple Crown.
Like almost every sire by Galileo, Churchill has nicked emphatically with Danehill and of course his great Australian bred The Autumn Sun is out of a Redoute's Choice mare and is very much a sire of elite fillies.
Robusto is bred to Northern Dancer 4m,5m x 5m, to Mr Prospector 5m x 5m, to Danehill's damsire His Majesty by Ribot twice x 5f,5m and She's Clean also carries a line to another great son of Ribot Tom Rolfe.
Had the foal from this mating been born female we would likely be talking about it as an Oaks winner by now.
But that's not to say Robusto can't bring glory to the family in his own right.
Tackling this race first up might just be the key to his chances and handicap conditions are all in his favour. He's a run on horse so the wide barrier seems okay for him with 52.5kg on his back in the shape of Kerrin McEvoy - no stranger to Stradbroke success!
Blowout Hope: SPICY MARTINI
This tough little Justify filly is all heart, was an $8,000 online Inglis yearling and would be a real Stradbroke fairytale result for her owner trainers Toby Edwards and Stephen McLean.
Spicy Martini could not go to the yearling sales due to dodgy x-rays which were essentially a sign of immaturity, but the market is unforgiving - that's how the daughter of an undefeated Triple Crown winner out of a stakes placed Redoute's Choice mare who traces tail female to the brilliant four times G1 winning Encosta de Lago daughter Alinghi, Fastnet Rock's great rival on the track, came to be sold for less than ten grand!
As often happens the great race mares don't always pass on their genetic gifts in the first or even the second generation, but sooner or later “blood will out”.
Justify is bred x 3 to Mr Prospector via daughters including the full sisters Preach and Yarn and to Nijinsky 4f x 5m
Extra Olives carries Nijinsky through his daughter Dancing Show and sex balances Mr Prospector through her second damsire Hussonet
Alinghi by Encosta de Lago brings the Mr Prospector daughter Rolls and is out of Monde Bleu by Last Tycoon by Try My Best (Nijinsky's family) - Monde Bleu is bred x 2 to daughters of Bull Lea one sired by Nasrullah the other by his three quarter brother Royal Charger.
Justify would love this pattern which is just one of many exciting compatibilities within Spicy Martini's pedigree.
The filly goes into the Stradbroke at only her seventh career start and she's in uncharted territory fourth up, G1, it's bigtime pressure - will it be a bridge too far?
She was gutsy to win the G3 Fred Best second up after bumbling the start.
She's not one of the flashest representatives of her spectacular looking sire but Spicy Martini seems to have inherited plenty of his professionalism and will to win and more than a bit of his “X factor” too.
The Justifys - they go forward, they cruise and they quicken.
From an ideal barrier in 4 and with just 49.5kg on her back this girl will be in it for a long way.
Angela Jones is the hoop who gets the opportunity to write her own fairytale with her first G1 winner.
