Rocky Newmarket Handicap Winner Retired

Rockhampton Newmarket Handicap winner Honkytonk Diva has retired from racing. The Under the Louvre mare raced 18 times for eight wins and five minor placings. Trainer Clinton Taylor said her owners Brian and Kaylene Gibson decided to call time on her racing career and send her to the breeding barn where she will be serviced by the extraordinarily talented Group 2 winner, King’s Gambit (I Am Invincible – Sultry Feeling)) at Newgate Stud, Aberdeen, NSW.

“They were going to breed with her last year, but thankfully decided to give her another racing season,” Taylor said. “The Cairn’s Newmarket was always going to be her last race – she deserves her chance to be a broodmare.”

The five-year-old had no luck at her final two race starts in the Mackay Newmarket and the Cairns Newmarket Handicaps.

Honkytonk Diva has had plenty of career highlights since starting her career with a second placing to Heroic Son at Doomben in October 2021. Her first victory was in a Two-Year-Old Maiden at the Gold Coast in April 2022, and she won on the same track eight months later. Her greatest number of victories were recorded in Central and North Queensland. She won the Northern Jewel QTIS Handicap at Callaghan Park and the Townsville Ladies Bracelet at Cluden in 2023. She also won four Open Handicaps at Rockhampton and Mackay, including her local Newmarket triumph in 2024.  Honkytonk Diva was also placed in the 2023 Capricorn Guineas and the 2024 Tattersall’s Sprint AT Callaghan Park.

RJC CEO, David Aldred.