Trainer and jockey quotes following the Group 3 John Hawkes Stakes won by Extremely Lucky at Morphettville on Saturday.

Race Result:

1st: Extremely Lucky (W Clarken & N O'Shea/J Kah) - $8
2nd: Sans Doute (M Walker/M Dee) - $4.80
3rd: What You Need (M Price & M Kent Jnr/C Williams) - $4.60 fav

Winning Time: 1:04.57  Last 600m: 34.71

Margins: Head x ½ neck

Extremely Lucky is back in the @Clarken_Racing stable & back in the winner's stall @jamieleekah07 pic.twitter.com/il3Y5CFcIX

— Racing.com (@Racing) April 27, 2024

Winning Trainer: Will Clarken and Niki O'Shea (Will speaking)

Very satisfying win: "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. 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.

"He went into it well underdone. His first proper gallop was at Balaklava the other day. I hate doing that but we saw the right race and for Jamie to ride him, it's worked."

Said was a Group 1 horse: "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. We haven't had a lot of horses in the yard that can do that. He's such a real introverted weird horse. He's an odd horse to train and logic suggests he should wear headgear, a tongue tie and a crossover, but he resented it so much that we had to take it all off.

"He does a lot of work on the treadmill and at the beach. I don't feed him a lot and just poke him along.

"It's been a big team effort. John Bunting did some corrective shoeing on him in Victoria. He came over here and he started up at the farm and he came down to my Morphettville stable and I've basically opened it back up to train him."

To win the first running of the John Hawkes: "It's great to haves the Hawkes' on course today. TThey're a famous South Australian racing family and it's great to see them back here."

Winning Jockey: Jamie Kah

Satisfying win: "It's good to see him back. He was a very, very smart horse, but so much went wrong with him.

"He was feeling the pinch near the line, but it was deserved."

In the run: "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."