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Saturday, July 19, 2025

Momentum holds Easter Guineas key

by

20140417

The Triple Crown se­ries will be­gin on Mon­day when the Ari­ma Race Club (ARC) stages one of the biggest cards in the two decades of cen­tral­i­sa­tion at San­ta Rosa Park, Ari­ma.

A grand to­tal of 138 hors­es were de­clared and there will be 11 races on the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board (NL­CB) spon­sored East­er pro­gramme.

The NL­CB Cham­pagne Stakes and the NL­CB East­er Guineas, two of the most pres­ti­gious races on the cal­en­dar, will be in the spot­light and jock­eys Patrick Hus­bands and Emile Ram­sam­my will be here from their base in Cana­da.

Ram­sam­my, this coun­try's most suc­cess­ful jock­ey who has rid­den over 2,500 ca­reer win­ners, will be back for the big day af­ter on­ly re­turn­ing to Wood­bine Race Course two weeks ear­li­er.

Hus­bands, one of the most suc­cess­ful jock­eys in the last decade at Wood­bine, spent the off-sea­son in his na­tive Bar­ba­dos and last month rode the win­ner of their most pres­ti­gious race, the Sandy Lane Gold Cup.

The NL­CB East­er Guineas be­gins the most pres­ti­gious se­ries in lo­cal rac­ing and the win­ner of this race will al­so have to pre­vail in the Carib Brew­ery Mid­sum­mer Clas­sic on In­di­an Ar­rival Day, May 30 and the NGC CNG Trinidad Der­by Stakes on Re­pub­lic Day, Sep­tem­ber 24, to be­come the first Triple Crown win­ner since TOP OF THE CLASS in 2003.

With prize-mon­ey of $315,000, the Guineas is the fifth rich­est race of the sea­son. The NGC CNG Trinidad Der­by; the Toy­ota Trinidad & To­ba­go Breed­ers Clas­sic, which is con­test­ed on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day Au­gust 1, and the Box­ing Day, De­cem­ber 26, Re­pub­lic Bank Gold Cup, each of­fer $500,000, $50,000 more than the Mid­sum­mer.

This year's Guineas has been robbed of some in­ter­est as fans will not get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to wit­ness the long await­ed first meet­ing be­tween last year's cham­pi­on ju­ve­niles SO­CA RHAP­SODY and MO­MEN­TUM, un­beat­en from three and four starts, re­spec­tive­ly.

Last year's St Ann's Stakes hero­ine SO­CA RHAP­SODY re­turned from a three months break to win the Ibis Stakes, but mu­cus was dis­cov­ered in her lungs af­ter the March 22 vic­to­ry and own­er Lester Moore has de­cid­ed to keep her in­doors.

MO­MEN­TUM would have prob­a­bly been the over­whelm­ing favourite any­way, but he is among five in the field of eight West In­di­an bred three-year-olds who will be at­tempt­ing two turns for the first time.

Dr. Ru­pert In­dar Jr's Ja­maican bred colt has won his four races by a com­bined mar­gin of over 24 lengths and the con­sen­sus is that if the Re­pub­lic On­line St. James Stakes and Flamin­go Stakes hero stays the trip he will romp home with the $189,000 win­ners' cheque.

Of course, lo­cal fans are yet to see SPIT­FIRE, who on­ly re­cent­ly came over his na­tive Ja­maica. This chest­nut geld­ing crushed a field by 18 lengths in a 1,700 me­tres en­counter in Feb­ru­ary.

Hus­bands will be aboard SPIT­FIRE and own­er Baskaran Bas­sawh, who brought down BIG­MAN IN TOWN to win the Der­by last year, is qui­et­ly con­fi­dent.

Glenn Mendez, who trained both Triple Crown win­ners; CAR­NI­VAL MES­SI­AH in 2001 and TOP OF THE CLASS, at San­ta Rosa Park, will have the ser­vices of Ram­sam­my for his oth­er charge, DARK TREA­SURE.

Af­ter cruis­ing home on ca­reer de­but by 11 lengths in ear­ly De­cem­ber, Dhan­paul Sookoo's son of Storms Past fin­ished a very dis­ap­point­ing 13 lengths be­hind MO­MEN­TUM in fourth in the Re­pub­lic Bank On­line St. James Stakes on Box­ing Day, but DARK TREA­SURE came back three months lat­er and fin­ished an eye catch­ing sec­ond to WING COM­MAN­DER in a 1,750 me­tres con­test for 55-40 rat­ed hors­es last time out.

So he not on­ly has ex­pe­ri­ence over two turns, he proved that he could stay and has to be a dan­ger to MO­MEN­TUM and SPIT­FIRE.

COUN­TRY BOY was in­volved in that same race as DARK TREA­SURE on March 29, but there were ques­tion marks about his sta­mi­na go­ing in and last year's Fu­tu­ri­ty Stakes win­ner end­ed up trail­ing the ten horse field, al­most 30 lengths be­hind the win­ner.

Of the oth­ers, HIGH OC­TANE looks the on­ly one who could be a con­tender for the top spot.

Af­ter im­pres­sive­ly win­ning the Roy­al Colours Clas­sic in the first start of his ca­reer on Feb­ru­ary 22, this son of Charis­mat­ic Cat was beat­en by over sev­en lengths in­to sec­ond by MO­MEN­TUM ex­act­ly a month lat­er over 1,350 me­tres in the "Flamin­go".

The East­er Guineas (GR.IR) is 450 me­tres fur­ther and HIGH OC­TANE, who has giv­en the im­pres­sion that he will stay, may be bet­ter suit­ed to the trip than his John O'Brien trained sta­ble com­pan­ion.

Still he may not be able to turn the ta­bles as, even if MO­MEN­TUM does not stay, he has shown so much class that he may still be able to get the job done.

The cham­pi­on train­er is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by the Bas­sawh owned JUST­CALLME­BAS in the day's penul­ti­mate event.

O'Brien is al­so ex­pect­ed to be in the spot­light in the Cham­pagne Stakes as he sad­dles the two ex­pect­ed favourites as well as two of the oth­ers in the field of sev­en top class hors­es.

HEAD­LINE NEWS and BIG­MAN IN TOWN, who have oc­cu­pied the top two po­si­tions in their last three clash­es, will square off again and there is a very good chance that they will fin­ish one-two again.

Af­ter go­ing down by a half a length in the Caribbean Cham­pi­on Stakes at the end of No­vem­ber, HEAD­LINE NEWS got his re­venge on Box­ing Day in the Re­pub­lic Bank Gold Cup and then trounced BIG­MAN IN TOWN by over three lengths in the Starlight Stakes at the end of last month.

But last year's Horse-Of-The-Year will have a very good op­por­tu­ni­ty for re­venge as he will be as many as four ki­los bet­ter off at the weights for their first turf show­down af­ter they raced at lev­el weights last time out.

HEAD­LINE NEWS, who has nev­er giv­en the Ja­maican bred chest­nut weight be­fore, will be at­tempt­ing to com­plete a beaver-trick of vic­to­ries. The Ruthven Smith bred and owned chest­nut has on­ly raced once on the grass, but he was re­al­ly im­pres­sive in win­ning the Caribbean Turf Cham­pi­onship at the end of Jan­u­ary.

BIG­MAN IN TOWN al­so proved that he is ca­pa­ble on the lawn, with a third placed ef­fort in the Er­ic "Colt" Du­rant Memo­r­i­al (GR.II) in the mid­dle of Feb­ru­ary.

KIDZ RO, who just edged the son of Cow­town Cat for sec­ond in that $150,000 con­test, is al­so in this field and this Amer­i­can bred four-year-old has to be a con­tender with Ram­sam­my in the sad­dle.

Round­ing out O'Brien's quar­tet is vast­ly im­proved CHASE THE DRAG­ON, who is step­ping up in class but he did up­set KIDZ RO last time for his sec­ond straight vic­to­ry and was sec­ond in the Turf Cham­pi­onship.Ver­sa­tile top class mare SA­CRED TRUST has to be re­spect­ed in the day's sixth event at 2:12PM along with 1,100 me­tres track record hold­er FLY JU­NIOR, who has won six of 11 on the turf.

STAR EN­TER­TAIN­ER, a win­ner of four of his six ca­reer starts, and CORO­NEO, who has won his two races by a com­bined 19 lengths, will clash at 12:55PM in the fourth, a 1,200 me­tres event for 100-70 rat­ed hors­es.

Post time is 11 am.


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