KINGSTON, Jamaica - Apprentice Oshane Nugent is seemingly coming to the attention of more than a few trainers.
In this column, we try to identify talent and predict likely success going forward. In the opener, Nugent did an extremely competent job in keeping Steven Todd’s confirmed short runner, Parajet, galloping to score by just over a length.
Anthony Allen has justified the attention paid to his rapid improvement in recent times. He has now ridden 10 winners this year to lead the table with Dane Nelson. Allen rode with supreme confidence to win the third event with Michael Hall’s five-year-old mare Dash of Class.
Half-an-hour earlier, top-class campaigner Superluminal (Omar Walker) won his 13th race from 47 starts to give trainer Ian Parsard the start for a three-timer. Surprisingly, Superluminal, the 2015 St Leger winner, had to work hard to deny the consistent and improving Fitznahum Williams-trained Atlantic Blue, who failed by only a neck to get on terms in the final strides.
A field of horses with unconvincing potential to stay the 1,820 metres trip lined up for the fourth. Infrequently engaged reinsman Conrod Ellis rode Olde Wharf to victory at odds of 38/1. The Gary Subratie-conditioned colt got home by just over a length to register one of the most remarkable reversals in form.
Favourite Dracarys turned on the backstretch with a deficit of 20 lengths at the rear, and interestingly, Olde Wharf lost his seven previous races by a combined total of 181 lengths at an average of just over 26 lengths per race.
Dane Nelson had his first of two successes aboard champion trainer Anthony Nunes’ Baltusrol, who outsprinted a strong field to win the fifth.
Simultaneously there was an announcement that the second-generation conditioner had saddled two winners on the four-race programme at the Royal St Lucia Turf Club Racetrack.
Conditioner Ian Parsard’s big chestnut mare the USA-bred Harry’s Train (Omar Walker) flew out of post position one and never looked likely to be overtaken over the minimum 1000-metre trip on the round sprint course to win the sixth. Walker, the former six-time champion and sprint-race riding expert, won his second on the day in tandem with the trainer.
Although Parsard must have been pleased with the sprinting of Harry’s Train, Classic aspirant Mahogany’s 6 ½ lengths runaway victory over 1,500 metres in a time of 1:31.2 to close the stable’s three-timer was cause for justified optimism. In the upcoming Classic races, Parsard’s window of opportunity got even wider especially with big-race specialist, former two-time champion jockey Shane Ellis, booked for the Futurities.
