Kelvin "N"

The De­r­ick Mosca-trained, Ja­maican-bred fil­ly, Roy­al Ba­by romped home a very easy 4 1/2 lengths win­ner in yes­ter­day's fea­ture event, the $100,000 Nurs­ery Stakes,over 1,200 me­tres at San­ta Rosa Park, Ari­ma. Sent off at the 1/2 favourite to land the $60,000 first prize cheque for own­er Baskaran Bas­sawh, Roy­al Ba­by won, with­out be­ing asked a se­ri­ous ques­tion. In the ju­ve­nile show­piece, Roy­al Ba­by, broke smart­ly but was quick­ly over­tak­en by new­com­er, To­do Bi­en and Shel­don Ro­dri­go, with Defin­ing Mo­ment close up.

How­ev­er, go­ing to the far turn, Richard Perez al­lowed the daugh­ter of Roy­al Min­is­ter/Go Ba­by Go to stride on and she did so ef­fort­less­ly, leav­ing her ri­vals for dead. At the cor­ner Roy­al Ba­by had a com­mand­ing six-length lead as Defin­ing Mo­ment moved up sec­ond and To­do Bi­en cried enough with Go­ta­go run­ning on. The daugh­ter of Roy­al Min­is­ter/Go Ba­by Go com­plet­ed a quick dou­ble and reg­is­tered the time of 1:13.80 for the trip. Defin­ing Mo­ment fin­ished sec­ond with Go­ta­go third.

On the un­der­card, Hon­est Hero, run­ner-up to Black­stone Street in the 1,350-me­tre Re­pub­lic Bank On­line Di­a­mond Stakes on Der­by Day, dis­ap­point­ed con­nec­tion when fin­ish­ing sixth be­hind Eto which won cosi­ly by 1 3/4 lengths, un­der lead­ing ap­pren­tice Bri­an Boodram­s­ing. Once in line for home, Eto was in con­trol and stopped the clock in 1:51.80. De­ci­sive Point stayed on for sec­ond 3/4 lengths ahead of cre­ole, Just In Time.

There were quite good pay­ments at the cen­tralised venue yes­ter­day, with one hap­py punter walk­ing home with a whoop­ing pay­ment of $139,319.50 for se­lect­ing the Hi-5 in the fifth event on the day's card. Gi­ac­in­ta won the event from Tryan­d­likeit with Jazz It Up. Cai­ley's Mag­ic was fourth and rank out­sider Ro­man­tic Pas­sion oc­cu­pied the fifth spot that stumped pun­ters. How­ev­er, in the fi­nal event Lekh Raj gave Bar­ba­di­an ap­pren­tice Jalon Samuel his first win­ner in T&T at odds of 37/1.

Lekh Raj had a head to spare over Be Nice. In this event no punter was able to win the Su­per­fec­ta or Hi-5. The day's lead­ing rid­er was ap­pren­tice Bri­an Boodram­s­ing who rode two win­ners in Eto and Shees Hot. Train­ing ho­n­ours for the day fell to De­r­ick Mosca who land­ed two win­ners. Rac­ing con­tin­ues next week at San­ta Rosa Park.