KINGSTON, Jamaica - ANTHONY “Baba” Nunes obviously knows something about winning the Jamaica Derby as the three-time champion conditioner has saddled five Derby winners so far — Terremoto (1998), Technomoto (2011), Relampago (2014), Orpheus (2016), and Supreme Soul (2019) who went on to win the Triple Crown.
Now in 2022, Nunes has an opportunity to make it win number six for The Blue Riband in bay colt Morimoto, bred by Casual Trick – Luckybegood.
Morimoto in his prep race for the August 6 Jamaica Derby Classic, the third and final jewel in the Triple Crown series of races, was an impressive winner over nine furlongs and 25 yards (1,820m) on July 16. Ridden by Tevin Foster, Morimoto won a length and half ahead of True Al Sky and Our Angel in a time of 2:00.0.
“It was alright, I mean it was a good performance by Morimoto as it was good to get him back on the winning side of things, and plus we tried with the visor to see how he would react to it. He was aggressive in it [visor] and so I think the performance was okay,” Nunes said.
Going into the Jamaica Derby at 12 furlongs (2,400m), Nunes said he is keeping his fingers crossed and hoping for the best from his charge.
“Twelve furlongs is a particular race where these three-year-olds have never run before — and chances are they will never run 12 furlongs again — so it is a tricky race as either you get the trip or you don’t. We are basically there hoping that he [Morimoto] gets the trip and hoping that Atomica and Blue Vinyl don’t run their best races — because the truth of the matter is that if they run their races they are better than him [Morimoto] at this time. We have to hope that they have an off day and we have a good day and [that] he [Morimoto] is on top of his game for things to really go well for him,” explained Nunes
