An­dre Bap­tiste

The 2013 rac­ing year was char­ac­terised by class and chaos in equal quan­ti­ties as the bet­ting pub­lic con­tin­ued to be flum­moxed by qual­i­ty race­hors­es, but mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion.There were 43 rac­ing days for the year, and this year, rather than fo­cus­ing on the neg­a­tives, which is way too easy, we will place the fo­cus on the an­i­mals that keep all of us com­ing back to the sport every day. There will be oth­er oc­ca­sions for us to dis­cuss the mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion that con­tin­ues to plague the sport. We will start our rac­ing re­view with the ju­ve­niles that ig­nite the en­thu­si­asm for the fu­ture.

Four ju­ve­niles ex­cit­ed the pub­lic. Two fil­lies stood out–the Ja­maican bred So­ca Rhap­sody and the lo­cal­ly bred Maran­za. So­ca Rhap­sody was a very im­pres­sive win­ner on her de­but by al­most 15 lengths, while Maran­za fin­ished run­ner up in her first two starts, in­clud­ing the Stud Farm As­so­ci­a­tion Stakes.The two fil­lies squared off in the Re­pub­lic St Ann's Stakes on Box­ing Day, and in what turned out to be a one horse race, So­ca Rhap­sody waltzed home un­chal­lenged win­ning in ex­cess of ten lengths and con­firm­ing her­self as the Cham­pi­on Two Year Old Fil­ly.

The colts were much more com­pet­i­tive, with four win­ners lin­ing up in the Re­pub­lic St James' Stakes. They were Mo­men­tum, the Ja­maican-bred colt who won the Nurs­ery Stakes, Dark Trea­sure, a lo­cal­ly-bred colt who won the Stud Farm As­so­ci­a­tion Stakes, Coun­try Boy, a lo­cal­ly-bred colt who won the Fu­tu­ri­ty Stakes and Eye See You, a Ja­maican-bred colt who won his maid­en. The four lined up with five oth­er maid­ens.In a slight­ly dis­ap­point­ing event, Dark Trea­sure nev­er re­al­ly fig­ured af­ter en­dur­ing an in­ter­rupt­ed prepa­ra­tion leav­ing Mo­men­tum to ease clear of Eye See You for a com­fort­able win and to wrap up the ti­tle of Cham­pi­on Two Year Old Colt. Mo­men­tum com­plet­ed the dis­tance in a time al­most two sec­onds faster than the fil­ly and so could be con­sid­ered the over­all cham­pi­on.The West In­di­an-bred three-year olds pro­vid­ed a num­ber of fas­ci­nat­ing races. At the start of the year, all of the hype sur­round­ed the Mo­hali Sta­bles un­beat­en St James win­ner, Prince Ze­shan. This colt was to prove a bit­ter dis­ap­point­ment. Run­ner up in the St James was an­oth­er Ja­maican-bred colt, War of Words, owned by Capt An­tho­ny Wight. This colt would go on to sweep all be­fore him while win­ning the first two legs of the Triple Crown, the Guineas and the Mid­sum­mer Clas­sic, be­fore tak­ing a four race win streak in­to the Trinidad Der­by.

At the same time, Head­line News, who had looked ex­cep­tion­al in his one ju­ve­nile start be­fore suf­fer­ing a se­ri­ous in­jury was grad­u­al­ly mak­ing his way back to the race­track. Oth­er lo­cal­ly-bred colts like Chase the Drag­on, Gold Rush and Pot of Gold al­so staked their claim with some out­stand­ing per­for­mances. While all of this was tak­ing place Baskaran Bas­sawh's Ja­maican foaled colt, Big­man In Town, had flat­tered to de­ceive in Ja­maica with two im­pres­sive ear­ly wins fol­lowed by a num­ber of dis­ap­point­ing de­feats in the first two Ja­maican clas­sics of the year. Bas­sawh then im­port­ed his colt for the Trinidad Der­by. In what proved to be an out­stand­ing race, Big­man in Town stymied War of Words' Triple Crown at­tempt with a com­fort­able vic­to­ry. Head­line News fin­ished fourth in his third start since his come­back but quick­ly re­bound­ed and two starts lat­er squared off against the Der­by win­ner in the Caribbean Cham­pi­on Stakes. The two colts, now both trained by John O'Brien, bat­tled down the straight be­fore Big­man pre­vailed by a head.The two colts lined up for a de­cider in the Re­pub­lic Bank Gold Cup. In what proved to be one of the best races of the year, Head­line News got his re­venge with a rous­ing stretch run. Race fans have a lot to look for­ward to in 2014 as both colts will be com­pet­ing at the high­est lev­el in the stay­ing di­vi­sion.

The old­er cre­oles were dom­i­nat­ed by one horse fol­low­ing the death of the cham­pi­on Bruceon­th­eloose. That horse was Galve­ston, who had shown in last year's Gold Cup that he was a much stouter stay­er than Bruce. Galve­ston won five of his first sev­en starts in­clud­ing the Caribbean Turf Cham­pi­onship, Ari­ma Race Club Cup, In­de­pen­dence Cup and Stud Farm As­so­ci­a­tion Na­tion­al Stakes. He fin­ished third in the oth­er two events, the Pres­i­dent's Cup and the Caribbean Cham­pi­onship Stakes be­fore lin­ing up for the Re­pub­lic Bank Gold Cup on Box­ing Day.Last year's Der­by win­ner, Free Pas­sage, al­so per­formed cred­itably. His best per­for­mances came in the Starlight Stakes and Er­ic Du­rant Memo­r­i­al while he was al­so third in both the Di­a­mond Stakes and In­de­pen­dence Cup. Galve­ston fin­ished a game fifth in the Gold Cup but was giv­ing the younger gen­er­a­tion in ex­cess of six ki­los, 2014 will see them all much clos­er in the weights and this just adds to the ex­cite­ment.The top im­port­ed horse was found among the sprint­ers with Crime of Pas­sion, a Cana­di­an-bred son of Lawyer Ron, tak­ing al­most all be­fore him in the sprints. This colt was an im­pres­sive win­ner of both the Stew­ards Cup and San­ta Rosa Dash for the open hors­es as well as the Im­port­ed Three Year Old sprint.

Al­so tak­ing his rank among the im­port­ed hors­es were the top class Sig­nal Alert and Sa­cred Trust, who con­tin­ued to per­form at a high lev­el. Sa­cred Trust ran out a sur­prise win­ner of the Di­a­mond Stakes but oth­er­wise would fin­ish be­hind both Crime of Pas­sion and Sig­nal Alert in all of the oth­er ma­jor sprints. Sa­cred Trust al­so showed her ver­sa­til­i­ty when win­ning the Sian's Gold Sprint on New Year's Day. While he was un­able to win any of the big sprints, Sig­nal Alert again showed his con­sis­ten­cy with run­ner up fin­ish­es in the San­ta Rosa Dash, Di­a­mond Stakes and Stew­ards Cup be­fore lin­ing up for the Re­pub­lic Bank Gold Cup on Box­ing Day. Among the im­port­ed stay­ers, on­ly Gab­by's Gold made any im­pres­sion on the bet­ting pub­lic when sur­pris­ing all in the Pres­i­dent's Cup at 11/1. He was then off the track un­til re­turn­ing in the Gold Cup. While not record­ing any wins, oth­er good per­for­mances came from the likes of Nom­i­nee, Strikes Not Spares and Woden.