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Top Ten Turf Males Twentieth Century

#9

Hawaii

(1966 - 1969)

Hawaii was imported to America after winning 15 of 18 starts in his native South Africa. The son of Artillo II, who was trained in North America by Mack Miller, won six of his ten starts in the United States in 1969 and was voted Champion Turf Horse.

Photo: Aiken Hall of Fame

PEDIGREE

Bay G

OWNER

Cragwood Stable

TRAINER

Mack Miller

BREEDER

A.L. Dall (Saf)

Some Facts

Hawaii was born in 1964 at A.L. Dell’s Colesberg Stud Farm in South Africa. He was sold to Charles Englehard Jr. at the 1966 National Yearling Sale in South Africa for $12,642 and would race in the colors of his Cragwood Stable.
Hawaii’s sire was the relatively unknown Italian stallion Utrillo (by Toulouse Lautrec), which never won a major stake race but did win the eighteen-furlong Cesarwitch Handicap in England in 1963. From what I can research, Utrillo sired several small crops spread over several years, and Hawaii was by far the best of the lot.
Hawaii was the twelfth of thirteen foals produced by Ethane (by Mehrali), who also produced William Penn (1961 by Netherwood). William Penn won five stakes in South Africa, including the Champion Stakes twice, the first time in 1968 when he defeated his half-brother Hawaii.
A fully mature horse, standing 16 hands before coming to America, Hawaii made eighteen starts in South Africa over three years, all on turf, and won fifteen of them. He was voted South African two-year-old and three-year-old champion.
Trained by Mac McKenzie, Hawaii raced for only one year in America. That was in 1969, when he was five years old. He was voted best turf horse that year by a wide margin, receiving 204 votes to second-place finisher Czar Alexander’s 77 and Fort Marcy’s 29.
After finishing third to Fort Marcy twice in 1969 in the Tidal Handicap and the Kelly-Olympic Handicap, Hawaii rebounded with dominating victories in the United Nations Handicap and the Man o’ War Stakes, with Fort Marcy finishing a well-beaten third in each. Hawaii was favored in every one of his ten starts in 1969, winning six with five of those in stakes while finishing out of the money once. That was in his only career start on dirt, a one-mile allowance race at Belmont Park, where he finished ninth.
Top trainer Mackenzie Miller, who trained Charles Engelhardt’s Assagai to top turf honors in 1966, was asked to compare Assagai to Mr. Engelhard’s Hawaii: “There is no comparison,” he said. “Hawaii was better in every respect, much better. Mr. Engelhard has had many top horses in many countries, (including Tentam, Halo, and the great Nijinsky), but he has never had the affection for a horse like he has for Hawaii. Hawaii is a joy. He is the best looking, smartest, best dispositioned, and has the best action and habits of any horse I have ever had. There has never been any way to fault him.”
Hawaii set one track record while racing in America. That was in the mile and one-half Man o’ War Stakes, which he won in 2:27 1/5 on Belmont Park’s Widener Course. It stood until Secretariat broke it in 1973.
Hawaii retired from racing after the 1969 racing season with twenty-one victories in twenty-eight career starts and earnings equivalent to $371,292 USD. Mr. Engelhard then syndicated him for $1,120,000 and sent to stand at studat Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky, where he sired thirty-five stake winners. His best progeny were Henbit, who won the 1980 Epsom Derby, Hawaiian Sound, who in 1978 was second in the Epsom Derby to Shirley Heights and won the Benson & Hedges Gold Cup, and Hunza Dancer, who was third in the 1975 Epsom Derby to top-rated Grundy and Nobiliary, and in 1977 went on to win the Manhattan Handicap and the American Handicap while setting a Belmont Park ten-furlong course record with a time of 1:58 4/5 in the Bowling Green Handicap. Hawaii also sired the 1975 Kentucky Oaks winner Sun and Snow.
Hawaii voted the American male Turf Champion in 1969 and was elected to the Aiken Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame in 1977. He passed away in 1990 at the age of twenty-six at Clairborne Farm and was buried there.