KINGSTON, Jamaica - THERE were 11 races on offer on the Saturday card and of those 11 races, eight were won by well-established jockeys, leaving the apprentices to scramble for the remaining three races.
Former champions Anthony Thomas claimed a natural hat-trick and Dick Cardenas brought home a double, while Omar Walker, Dane Nelson and Robert Halledeen accounted for one winner each.
The successful apprentices were Tevin Foster, Raddesh Roman and Roger Hewitt.
This continued the recent dominance of the senior riders as the apprentices are finding it harder and harder to compete especially of late. This evolving trend will be followed by this publication.
Odds-on favourite Chennai Express, trained by Howard Jaghai, one of those lightly built fillies who is no world beater but will pay her way for the connections, took the first. Going to the front in the hands of leading rider Nelson, the little filly kept increasing her lead to score by eight lengths.
Half an hour later it was the turn of Cardenas, in partnership with champion conditioner Anthony Nunes, to win their first of two races.
In a reserve confined to juveniles, Mister Mandate — who was nearly brought down at the start of his debut — was able to justify odds-on favouritism by over two lengths in the day’s second.
Trainer Lincoln Lungs, from only nine starts, had his first seasonal trip to the winners’ enclosure when Roman persuaded Painthistownred to defend his early lead to win the third by nearly two lengths.
Surprisingly, conditioner Joseph Thomas, who had such a good year in 2019, posted his first win of the season from 26 starts when Omar Walker guided Radical to a wide-margin victory in the fourth.
Former top-class campaigner Dontae, starting with a $500,000 claiming tag, worked hard to land the odds in the fifth to close the Cardenas/Nunes pair of winners.
Thomas, easily the most talented reinsman to emerge in the last decade, landed a challenging assignment for his first of three wins by inducing Colin Ferguson’s De Inevitable, absent since December and in front early, to stay on under great pressure to score by a short head.
Thomas had a much easier task in landing the seventh as Sir Kel, trained by Anthony Subratie, outsprinted six rivals to win the seventh by over three lengths.
However, the 2018 champion had to be at his best aboard Wayne DaCosta’s Silent Seeker, who bested two rivals by a short head and a nose in the eighth for the classy reinsman to earn a third trip to winners’ circle.
The performance of the day was turned in by Wayne Parchment’s seven-year-old consistent mare Wartime in the ninth. Running from off the pace as usual, Foster brought the chestnut with a well-timed run to defy top weight by a neck over four-year-old filly front-running Cryptocurrency.
For his eleventh victory from 23 starts, Patriarch (Robert Halledeen) outsprinted rivals convincingly in the 10th to win three of his last four races for trainer Fitzgerald Richards.
The nightcap went to Carl Anderson’s City Counsel, giving three-kilo claiming apprentice Roger Hewitt his first 2020 win from 26 rides.
