For approximately six months, Michael Hawkes had been cautiously managing his high expectations for Chuchichaschtli, but he was able to let them fly after the filly captured a stakes event at just her second race start.
The Exceedance filly, whose unusual name is a Swiss-German term for kitchen cupboard, clearly demonstrated her inherent talent with a decisive 1-3/4 length win over Omolong in Saturday’s Listed Tapp-Craig (1400m) at Rosehill.
The $3 favourite made her initial appearance only last month, recording a strong midweek success at Warwick Farm, and Hawkes mentioned he had been anticipating her racecourse debut for a considerable duration.
“Probably the better part of six months I’ve known she’s been something,” Michael Hawkes commented.
“She’s pretty special. There’s not a lot of her, but she’s all heart, and she’s a racehorse.”
Chuchichaschtli is owned by long-time Hawkes Racing supporters, including Captain Gary Lui, a pilot, and George Doyle. The trainer expressed his pleasure in being able to acknowledge their patronage.
The horse’s distinctive name was proposed by Lui’s wife, and the trainer confessed it took some effort to learn how to pronounce it.
“It’s a bit of a tongue twister isn’t it? I call her ‘Koo-kar-kashli’, ‘Hoo-ha-ha-shli’. However you want to call it, doesn’t matter, she’s a winner,” Hawkes noted.
Hawkes indicated that he would evaluate the filly’s post-race condition before deciding on her next outing, with the Callander-Presnell (1600m) at Randwick in two weeks being a potential option.
“We’ll see how she pulls up,” he said.
“We were chasing stakes grade and this race presented. Her win at Warwick Farm was outstanding. She ran amazing time.
“All you’ve got to do is win and she’s won well, but the part I loved is the further she went through the line, the more she ran through it and the better she was.”
Tyler Schiller, who has now won three of the five renewals of the Tapp-Craig, was the jockey for Chuchichaschtli. His previous victories in the race were on Opal Ridge (2022) and Makarena (2023), who was also trained by Hawkes Racing.
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