KINGSTON, Jamaica - Three Times Lucky ridden by Javaniel Patterson presented trainer Wayne DaCosta with his second success on his way to landing a triple on the race card of Saturday, January 2, 2021.
That win by Three Times Lucky came in a native-bred, three-year-old Maiden Condition contest going seven furlongs (1400 metres).
Running for the seventh time in her short racing career, the Northern Giant-Granville Greta three-year-old chestnut filly won the event by 1 1/4 lengths in a time of 1:27.4, with accompanying splits of 24.0 x 47.3 x 1:13.1.
Finishing second was Hilly’s Vision ridden by outgoing champion jockey Christopher Mamdeen. Whispering Magic, the mount of Oshane Nugent was third.
Three Times Lucky looked fairly comfortable releasing her maiden tag without much fuss, but her time of 1:27.4 was less than acceptable to her trainer who is hopeful for a turnaround.
“Three Times Lucky has been knocking on the door and has been running consistently but not coming second or without actually winning. Today [Saturday, Jan 2, 2021] she got a cheaper field and once she got that early lead, she had enough to hold on for the win.
“The time was not that great for a Classic hopeful, but we will see where she goes from here. The jockey reported that she was idling up the straight and looking for the horse behind her so we will see where she goes from here.
“We bought her [Three Times Lucky] as a possible Classic horse as she is from the same line as She’s A Maneater, but we thought that she would have been more precocious, but she seems to be just taking her own time coming on. We changed her equipment a number of times as we tried to find out what she is exactly like.
“We are still not sure if her equipment is right, whether the tongue tie and figure eight are what she wants, but as we go along, we will see what lies behind the clouds.
“We are going to run her in non-winners of two not too far from now and see where we go because to run against the top-class horses is instructive as then you will know where you are.
“This was a relatively poor field and not until she runs against the real good horses we will know how good she is. We are hopeful as she is bred along staying lines as her stallion Northern Giant seems to be throwing stayers, so we just have to hope for the best with her,” DaCosta said.
