Gifted the featured 15th staging of the 1500-metre King’s Plate, formerly a Grade One event but now restricted to the Overnight Allowance category, top rated Mama Mia (9-5) dominated the early fractions and stayed on well to best eight rivals.
Ridden by the Jason DaCosta imported reinsman Josue Osorio, a native of Panama whose career record there read 70 winners from 974 rides, Mamma Mia, heroine of the 2023 Jamaica 1000 Guineas and Oaks, scored by just over one length.
Osorio’s first win locally was the second of two successes for the DaCosta 2023 champion and current season-leading outfit.
The first came in race four with the promising undefeated, 3-5 bet Funcaandun (USA), partnered exclusively by Shamaree Muir to date, beat the closest of eight rivals by just over one length in the 1300-metre gallop. This is win number three and the talented colt will be competing at the highest level sooner rather later.
Sharing the spotlight with the King’s Plate was the divided 2024 Grooms Association Trophy with the Fabian White-led entity’s honourees in Keith Dixon, Wayne Dawes, Delroy Little, Clive Lawrence, Vaughn Taylor, Maurice Hart, Nathaniel Nelson, Raymond Irwin, Michael Smith and Carlos Martin recognized appropriately.
The first leg of the1000-metre straight Grooms’ event, run as race seven, was won by 5-2 bet Oasis Jak (USA) trained by Rohan Crichton and proved to be the third of three winners for leading jockey Tevin Foster.
Race eight, the second leg of the Grooms’ event went to 9-1 shot California Gold with two-kilogramme claiming reinsman supplying the riding honours for trainer Patrick Lynch.
Back now to the exploits of Foster. His first came in the 1300-metre opener with Kingswood (2-1) a near five-length winner for trainer Ryan Darby.
Almost unbelievably this nine-year-old grey horse career performance is highly unusual with eight wins, eight seconds and four third placings from only 38 starts with lengthy breaks in his long racing life.
Foster then had to wait an hour to confirm another winner as the intervening second event over 1400 metres was won under a bustling effort from Phillip Parchment aboard Great Wayne for conditioner Marlon Pusey’s charge to score by three parts of a length at odds of 5-2.
In race three over 1000 metres straight, Parchment rode the aging Fiery Path (3-1) to be second but suffered a fall, beyond the winning post, with resulting injuries requiring hospital care.
The winner, Undecided (2-1), saddled by owner/trainer Steven Todd, proved be Foster’s second of the eventual three.
Race five over 1200 metres, a maiden condition for four-year-olds and upwards, was won by Phiny coming home just under three lengths clear at odds of 6-1 with two-kilogramme claimer Shane Richardson executing the jockeyship for trainer Ricardo Brown.
In race six, run at 1400 metres and restricted to three-year-old maidens, went the Anthony Nunes schooled Captain Sparrow (Reyan Lewis) bettering his nearest opponent by better than three lengths in this his second career start.
Owned by Supreme Ventures Racing & Entertainment Limited Executive Chairman Solomon Sharpe and trained by Owen Sharpe, Bulletproofcoffee (USA) won the tenth and closing event by five and a half lengths.
The four-year-old bay filly, ridden by Jerome Innis, was sent off as the favourite at odds 6-5. She should have more success in her immediate future and was one of the three progressive US-bred winners on the card.
