FURTHER AND BEYOND – THE BEST IN RACING YEAR 2021

Also, champion three-year-old, local bred, and stayer

KINGSTON, Jamaica - Chestnut colt Further and Beyond is the 2021 Horse of the Year.

After the votes were tallied Further and Beyond by Blue Pepsi Lodge out Rumble, trained by champion Anthony Nunes, received 15 out of the 15 available votes to be crowned Horse of the Year. The Horse of the Year voting panel is comprised of representatives from the promoting company, Supreme Ventures Racing and Entertainment Limited, and the media.

Further and Beyond was also voted as the champion three-year-old, champion stayer, champion middle-distance performer, and champion local-bred horse.

Jamaica Derby, Jamaica St Leger, and Gold Cup winner Calculus received nine of the 15 votes for the first runner slot to the Horse of the Year with King Arthur voted as the second runner-up.

Owned by Vickram Oditt, Raydon Persad, Rajendra Poonai, and Anthony Nunes and bred by Chad Feanny, Herman Wong Leung, and Donna Wong, Further and Beyond won five races from 10 starts during 2021 for total stakes earned of $10,361,050. This amount was the most earned by any horse in 2021.

Among Further and Beyond’s five wins were the Grade One Jamaica Cup (9 ½ furlongs), the Grade One Ian Levy Cup (8 1/2), the Grade Two Prince Consort Stakes (seven furlongs), and the Grade Two The Kingston (7 ½ furlongs), in which Further and Beyond dead-heated with Miniature Man. The result of the Kingston is currently the subject of an appeal lodged by the connections of Miniature Man.

“I am obviously very pleased. When you win a Horse of the Year, it shows not only you have a talented horse but you have a consistent horse at the highest level and so I am very pleased.

I know it must have been a hard decision by the voters because Calculus is a very good horse.  He won the Derby and St Leger and so he must have certainly deserved to be in the running with Further And Beyond. But having trained both of them, I always thought Further and Beyond was the more talented of the two and I think he proved that at the backend of the year once he got healthy after being injured in the 2000 Guineas by winning the Jamaica Cup and the Ian Levy Cup, not just by winning it but it (Ian Levy)  but winning it in emphatic fashion. I think the honour is well deserved.

”Further and Beyond got injured in the Guineas when he ran third and what I loved about him is that when he was injured, he continued to run in the rest of the Classic races even though I couldn’t train him the way I would have liked to but it showed how consistent he was, how determined he was, he has the heart of a champion. No matter what I asked him to do he forced through it and that’s what champions are made of and so I am very happy for the breeders and owners to have a Horse of the Year .

“I gave Further and Beyond a break of a month after the Ian Levy just to rest and relax because he has had a hard season. We gave him his first two furlong breeze last week Sunday and he looked beautiful, nice, big and strong and so I think we could somewhere between March and April for him to have his four year old debut,” Nunes said.

There was further success for Nunes as his chestnut filly Golden Wattle was unanimously voted by the panel as the champion Two-Year-Old. Bred by Orange Valley Estates, and owned by Bruce Baylis, Rajendra Poonai, Ajax Bjorn, and Stephan Narinesingh, Golden Wattle tasted success in three of her five juvenile starts.

Two of Golden Wattle’s victories came in the Dye Job Sprint and the one-mile, Jamaica Two-Year-Old Stakes.

Father Patrick was voted as the champion sprinter, and Eroy as the champion imported horse.

Johnny Wilmot was voted as the most improved trainer and Tevin Foster, the most improved rider.

Other 2021 champions were Carlton Watson – champion owner; Anthony Thomas – champion jockey; champion trainer – Anthony Nunes; champion apprentice – Oshane Nugent; champion groom – Tefara Wright; champion breeder – HAM Stables Ltd; champion sire – Casual Trick, and champion mare – Rumble.