Stefi Magnetica’s Stradbroke Handicap win for owner who battled breast cancer

There was an emotional backstory to Stefi Magnetica’s Stradbroke triumph with part-owner Lorilie Cunningham being to hell and back with a breast cancer battle.

Queenslanders Mitch and Lorilie Cunningham after the mother and son team won the Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap with Stefi Magnetica. Picture: Ben Dorries.

Queenslander Lorilie Cunningham has been through hell and back with a breast cancer battle so this was an emotion-charged Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap win for the ages.

Stefi Magnetica might be trained by Bjorn Baker almost 1000km away in Sydney but this win was coated in the Queensland maroon for the owners of the filly, the Cunningham family.

The family created national headlines as the initial managing owners of crack two-year-old colt Storm Boy which surged to an extraordinary Gold Coast Magic Millions win in January before being sold in a whopping deal to Coolmore that at one stage could have been worth $60 million.

But any Queensland racing person craves a Stradbroke triumph more than anything else, so there was no wonder Lorilie Cunningham was in tears and almost speechless as she hugged her son Mitch and husband Gary in emotional post race scenes at Eagle Farm.

But there was another reason for the tears given Lorilie Cunningham has now come out the other side of a breast cancer fight after she was diagnosed in 2021.

This was a special win for a special family.

The filly Stefi Magnetica wins an epic G1 Stradbroke - and it’s @ZacLloydx with his first Group 1 winner! 🙌@[e-mail]/eQl5rMReHB

— SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) June 15, 2024

Stefi Magnetica is named after her biggest fan – Mitch’s wife Stephanie who the family says has a magnetic personality.

“This is a win for Queensland and to win the Stradbroke, I’m just beside myself,” Lorilie Cunningham said.

“The joy I feel is like nothing else. The Magic Millions and the Stradbroke are the races we always wanted to win and we never thought we could do it, let alone in the same year.”

Lorilie’s husband Gary said: “We knew she was a champion little filly, she hasn't had much luck in her career.

“She has run her heart out, she was challenged there.”

The three-year-old filly launched her winter carnival mission with a sensational run to finish fifth in the Doomben 10,000 as a $41 chance and the writing was on the wall from then that she would be a huge chance, plummeting to just 50kg in the Stradbroke.

It was young gun Zac Lloyd’s first Group 1 win and it meant so much to the Cunninghams, with the owners completing the 2024 Magic Millions-Stradbroke double after the filly launched her run from well back towards the inside.

Originally published as Stefi Magnetica’s Stradbroke Handicap win for owner who battled breast cancer