The upcoming second Saturday of January 2025 will mark 33 years since the flawed and therefore unviable and complicated claiming system made its disastrous debut.
This, against the advice of those of us who had a grasp of the nuances of the successful promotion of horse racing. The racing product lost its simplicity and equity of form with inferior horses conceding weight to superior horses in 90 per cent of all races with the bizarre artificial classification of the horse population.
The failure of claiming was entirely predictable as it was established on two false premises. Firstly, that local product under the handicap system lacked integrity in spite of an annual growth rate of 10 per cent and cumulatively 300% in the three decades prior. So much so, that in 1960 there were 29 race meetings and by 1992 it exploded to 84 with 115 runners and between 11 and 12 races per day.
Secondly, the ignorant and foolish architects of claiming were able to convince the naïve ownership fraternity that the trading of racehorses in Jamaica’s amateur scenario could be a viable economic activity when it was not so even in the United States. The revolving door of famous misguided big spenders with badly burnt fingers is testimony to the unqualified failure of claiming over the years.
The 67 declarations for today’s card were divided into nine races and the opening event was won by 2-1 bet Catalina Princess (USA) ridden by 2022 champion Dane Dawkins for the Dalton Sirjue conditioned four-year-old filly to score by nearly two lengths.
The opening race was a precursor of sorts to the much-anticipated second-race debut of the first foal of the champion She’s A Maneater to start.
Schooled by Jason DaCosta, a well grown colt interestingly named Stormbringer demonstrated he has inherited some talent of his distinguished dam. Guided by Robert Halledeen, for the first of double success in tandem with DaCosta, the 1-9 bet debutant reeled off five and a half furlongs in a time of 1:07.0 with early fractions against the breeze to win by a margin of 24 lengths.
Recent Jamaica Racing Commission Riding School (JRCRS) graduate Javier Sybble had first success in partnering owner/trainer Donovan Plummer’s Town Star (11/1) to win the seven-furlong race three by four and half lengths.
In race four 3-5 fancied Manousche, saddled by long-serving Louis Richards and ridden by Shane Richardson, won the six-furlong gallop by six lengths and a quarter.
Then another veteran conditioner, in the form of Gresford Smith, saddled Nomoredeals (3-1) ridden by Paul Francis to take race five over seven furlongs.
In race six, 3-5 bet frontrunner Final Load (USA) won the seven-furlong contest by three parts of a length with champion Raddesh Roman executing the riding honours for trainer Winchester McIntosh.
The second JRCRS graduate to win his first was Tajay Suckoo, who partnered Victor Williams’ maiden Rapida (5-1) over the four furlongs of the straight course contested for race seven.
The 2024 Two Thousand Guineas winner California Crown (1-5) after failing to raise a gallop in the St Leger and the Derby was reprogrammed for his third seasonal debut and sprinted nine and a half lengths clear in 1:05.4 for the five and half furlongs of race eight. This confirmed the Halledeen riding double and the DaCosta stable’s second. The ninth and closing over the maximum straight course went to Richard Azan’s Laban (8-1) in a one-length success with the visiting Panamanian reinsman Ishmael Velaquez.
