KELVIN "N"

Nu­clear Pow­er, su­perbly rid­den by Wilmer Galviz, carved a new im­age in lo­cal rac­ing and gave lo­cal breed­ing and the “Sport of Kings” re­newed lo­cal en­thu­si­asm.

The Three-year-old, grey fil­ly tracked the lead­ers un­til be­ing set alight at 800 me­tres out to beat the Glenn Mendez trained pair of Val­or­ous and Stew­ards Cup win­ner Whis­per Light in a dri­ving fin­ish in the 2,000-me­tre, Grade One NL­CB Gold Cup on Box­ing Day.

The event was the fea­ture of the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board Box­ing Day pro­gramme at San­ta Rosa Park, Ari­ma, on Tues­day.

Be­fore a largest and most en­thu­si­as­tic Box­ing Day crowd at Ari­ma, the Har­ri­ram Gob­in trained Nu­clear Pow­er be­came on­ly the third fil­ly to win the pres­ti­gious event at San­ta Rosa Park since the sport switched homes from the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah to San­ta Rosa Park in 1993.

Nu­clear Pow­er, owned by cham­pi­on own­er Shiv­am Ma­haraj, showed to all and sundry that she is one of the best stay­ers in the South­ern Caribbean.

Many in the large crowd be­lieved that the race was one of the best seen for al­most a decades and with 300 me­tres left to race, there were five hors­es spread across the track fight­ing to land the $132,000 first prize cheque.

With Galviz dri­ving Nu­clear Pow­er for all he was worth on the rail, Cham­pi­on jock­ey Ricky Jadoo had the Mer­lin Sam­lals­ingh owned Val­or­ous eye­balling the grey all the way to the fin­ish-line with Dil­lon Khelawan and Whis­per Light mak­ing it a three-way go bat­tle for cham­pi­onship ho­n­ours. This was a tur­fites dream as the trio raced in uni­son to the line.

How­ev­er, it was Galviz and Nu­clear Pow­er which pow­ered a head in front at the line with cre­ole Val­or­ous run­ning blind­er to be a short-head in front of Whis­per Light at the line.

In the NL­CB Grade Two - St Ann's Stakes over 1,350 me­tres, the Chevan Ma­haraj trained fil­ly Shes So Spec­taula lived up to her name with a scin­til­lat­ing per­for­mance. She cruised home all alone with her rid­er Ri­co Her­nan­dez do­ing pre­cious lit­tle. She record­ed a time which was two-fifths of a sec­ond faster than that which was pro­duced by Re­gal In­ten­tion in the NL­CB St James Stakes. Shes So Spec­taula is clear­ly the best ju­ve­nile in train­ing and could be the 'Triple Crown' cham­pi­on of 2019.

Sel­by Browne, NL­CB- Di­rec­tor of Mar­ket­ing and Spon­sor­ship was hap­py with the day's rac­ing where some $1.5 mil­lion was wa­gered on the 10-race pro­gramme. He stat­ed, "The day at­tract­ed a large crowd and the en­ter­tain­ment pro­vid­ed pun­ters, tur­fites and friends of the sport with great en­joy­ment as the hors­es and jock­eys com­bined their tal­ents and pro­duced some mem­o­rable fin­ish­es, which were com­ple­ment­ed with lu­cra­tive re­wards. I am thank­ful that we the NL­CB have part­nered with the ARC and have crys­talised a re­la­tion­ship which be­gan in 1958. We at NL­CB hope that our part­ner­ship with the ARC will con­tin­ue to ben­e­fit the rac­ing in­dus­try and the coun­try.

Baskaran Bas­sawh, Pres­i­dent of the Ari­ma Race Club (ARC), was ec­sta­t­ic about the day’s rac­ing and: “This is won­der­ful. look at the crowd, it is a good day. This is a good Box­ing Day for rac­ing. This is great for the rac­ing in­dus­try.”

Cham­pi­on Train­er Glenn Mendez showed that he meant busi­ness by sad­dling the Louis De Meil­lac owned Rant 'N' Rave with Cham­pi­on Jock­ey Ri­car­do Jadoo up to win the open­er on the big day.

Then Sven Bal­roop who was rid­ing his first race in pub­lic made a fairy-tale start to his ca­reer by land­ing High­land Lass for train­er Harold Chadee. Chadee re­peat­ed his win­ning turn when he sad­dled Re­gal In­ten­tion with Wilmer Galviz astride to beat Ear­ly Bird in the third be­fore John O'Brien sad­dled his lone win­ner on Box­ing Day with Shes So Spec­taula and Ri­co Her­nan­dez.

Rough 'N' Tum­ble was on his best be­hav­iour for Galviz sec­ond win as Chadee sad­dled his third win­ner on the card at the cen­tralised venue.

Lester Alex­is got a be­lat­ed Christ­mas present when Naim Sama­roo boot­ed home favourite Chin­ta be­fore Sama­roo land­ed his dou­ble aboard favourite Mu­si­cal Score in the sev­enth.

Bri­an Boodram­s­ing then got on the score­sheet when he land­ed his first win­ner with out­sider Khaleesi, at odds of 23/1.

Nu­clear Pow­er then land­ed “Gold” for Gob­in and Ma­haraj in the fea­ture event to go to the top of the class.

Yoseny­er Ser­ra­no then end­ed the day in style for train­er Gob­in and own­er Shiv­am Ma­haraj as Mas­ter of War scored de­ci­sive­ly in the fi­nale crash­ing the dream of Boodram­s­ing and Rav­ish­ing as rac­ing said adieu to the 2018 sea­son.

Af­ter the grand Box­ing Day pro­gramme, Nu­clear Pow­er is the new “Queen” of lo­cal rac­ing while the Ari­ma Race Club now has a “Nu­clear Weapon” for life.