KINGSTON, Jamaica - Eleven-year-old gelding Hologram Shadow (Anthony Allen), claimed by veteran trainer Dennis Lee on January 11 and who was declared the grand old campaigner for his 101st career start, was amply rewarded.
Held up behind the leaders to the top of the stretch, Hologram Shadow sprinted by the tired front-runners inside the last 200 metres to register his 27th victory, along with 30 other placed finishes.
Champion juvenile Wow Wow (Ameth Robles) was at the races for the 10th time. In the day’s second, the objective was to commence his pursuit of the lucrative Futurities purses.
Trainer Gary Subratie advised that this race provided an opportunity for more schooling of Wow Wow, with the rider instructed not to get involved in the early pace but to go for the lead at a later stage.
Wow Wow had to turn back a spirited challenge from chief rival Nipster approaching the distance but was well on top at the finish, albeit by only two lengths. This was his ninth triumph, thereby announcing bad news for his current and potential rivals and is likely to improve significantly going forward.
Speaking of Futurities, the challengers are lining up as Philip Feanny saddled an impressive debutant Mr LFCH (Ian Spence) to win the eighth on the bridle in a time of 1:13.2 for the 1200-metre sprint.
The impressively conformed chestnut colt cruised to the front 800 metres from the finish and ended over seven lengths in front at the wire.
Having saddled another colt called Adoring to canter home by 10 lengths on January 25 and further, with Ian Parsard’s Mahogany improving fast, Wow Wow may very well have a few more possibly worthy challengers than bargained for in his quest for 2020 Classic glory.
Dane Nelson won the first of a double when Gary Griffiths’s consistent mare Azaria had too much finishing speed for seven rivals in the third event. Nelson, declared for the third-consecutive occasion on Patriarch, had little to do as the five-year-old horse outsprinted rivals, winning by nearly two lengths to secure the seventh race easing down.
The previous two victories were for champion trainer Anthony Nunes and this for trainer Fitzgerald Richards and owner Vincent Maine – the claimant of Patriarch – for $1 million on January 4, 2020.
Ratio (Youville Pinnock) ended the frustration of trainer Everald Francis in the fourth as the six-year-old horse won on its fifth start to erase the memory of the four consecutive second-placed finishes prior. Under a good ride from recently licensed apprentice Richard Henry, Miss Hazel obliged in the fifth for trainer Shaun Williams to open his 15 per cent of the purse-commission account.
Raw Liquid (Oshane Nugent) was always clear in the sixth for trainer Rohan Mathie while Loose Ball (Jerome Innis) beat an extremely ordinary field of maidens in the ninth to give former 18-time champion trainer Wayne DaCosta his third win from 36 attempts in the season so far.
Breeder/owner/trainer Carl Anderson’s Friendly Neighbour’s sudden return to form gave apprentice Jordan Barrett his fourth winner from 133 career rides in the 10th event.
In the nightcap, Universal Boss’s enterprising siege of the initiative from 1000 metres out condemned favourite Duke to a fifth runner-up placing in his last seven races.
Always going well with visiting Barbados national Simon Husbands at the reins, Universal Boss scored by 5 ½ lengths, sprinting the 1,400 metres in 1:25.1 to give champion conditioner Nunes his eighth 2020 win.
