KINGSTON, Jamaica - The seasonal debut of the champion two-year-old of last season, Mojito, in the Prince Consort Stakes on Sunday, April 9, 2023, was widely anticipated as many, including connections, wanted to see how much progress the Richard Azan trainee had made over the past few months.
The grey colt rose above all expectations as Mojito, showing his known class, easily brushed aside rivals by 5 lengths in the Graded Stakes event for native-bred three-year-old colts and geldings over 7 furlongs (1,400m). Mojito (Savoy Stomp –Fiftyshadesofray), ridden by Dane Dawkins, surrounded horses at the top of the lane and hit the wire in a smooth 1:26.2.
Azan said that he was pleased with Mojito’s first run of the season, as the plan is to get his charge fit and ready for the Classic races, starting with the 2000 Guineas in June.
“He hadn’t raced since December of last year because he looks like a horse that would go to the Classics. We plan to train him along that road. The first race towards the Classic was today (April 9), and so we took our time and prepared him, and he won, so we hope we can move on from there,” Azan said.
“Let’s see where we go from here on. Always, you wait and see how the horse recovers from the race, and then we plan again, so we are not going to plan yet. Sometimes, he jumps slowly, and I told the jockey if he jumps slowly, don’t rush because he has a long stride, and he will take his time and catch them, and that is what he did. By the time he reached the three-furlong marker, he was ready to pounce on them,” Azan added.
Mojito didn’t get the best of starts at the break and raced among behind the early pacemakers in mid-pack and watched as Big Guy In TheSky (Raddesh Roman) led the field ahead of Loyal Action (Matthew Bennett), Milos (Youville Pinnock), and Rejected Raja (Robert Halledeen) down the backstretch.
Mojito continued to bide his time well until approaching the half-mile (800m) turn, when he began to round horses going into the bend. The grey colt then hit the front full of running at the top of the stretch and went about his business to register his third consecutive win from five career starts. Rejected Raja ran the race of his life to finish second, ahead of Milos in third place. Splits were 23.3 x 47.0 x 1:11.2.
