The Har­ri­ram Gob­in trained six-year-old chest­nut horse Af­fir­ma­tive who won hand­i­ly on Day 8 of the Ari­ma Race Club 2021 sea­son on April 24th could be dis­qual­i­fied from his po­si­tion and his train­er could face the Board of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rac­ing Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA).

In the third event on the sev­en race card, Af­fir­ma­tive was made the 1-2 favourite to win the the third event, The Mod­i­fied Bench­mark Hand­i­cap for three-year-olds and over hors­es rac­ing over a dis­tance of 1,750 me­tres on the main track. Af­fir­ma­tive with Dil­lon Khelawan astride won eas­i­ly by 2 1/2 lengths from Desert Dancer with the 2020 'Triple Crown ' Cham­pi­on Wise Guy back in third in the five­horse field.

In a Press Re­lease from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rac­ing Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA) which was signed by Sec­re­tary Josette Mc David, it states, Own­ers and Train­ers are ad­vised that the sam­ple of Equine Urine/Blood Sam­ples tak­en from Af­fir­ma­tive - Win­ner of Race 3? Day 8 of the 2021 Rac­ing Sea­son held on Sat­ur­day 24th April con­tains "Di­clofenac" at a Con­cen­tra­tion Greater than the es­tab­lished Thresh­old of 5NG Per ML of Serum for this sub­stance.

All oth­er sam­ples of Equine Urine/Blood Test­ed on Sat­ur­day April 24th have been re­port­ed Neg­a­tive.

Should Af­fir­ma­tive be dis­qual­i­fied, then the re­sults will read as Fol­lows:

1st: Desert Dancer: 2nd; Wise Guy : 3rd. Re­gal In­ten­sion 4th: Com­mand­ing Fash­ion

Day 8 (April 24) WIN­NERS

Con Te Par­tiro

Just Ex­hale

La­dy Hamiltin

Rio Pon­ti

Star of Won­der

So­ca Sym­ph­p­ny

<Har­ri­ram 'Pep­si" Gob­in pass­es>

Top train­er, Har­ri­ram "Pep­si" Gob­in died on Thurs­day night. This is an­oth­er blow for rac­ing in T&T. Over the past 18 months, more than ten top rac­ing en­thu­si­asts have passed away.

Gob­in com­plained of feel­ing un­well be­fore be­ing tak­en to the hos­pi­tal and af­ter a few days he died but it was not from Covid-19.

The like­able and usu­al­ly qui­et Gob­in has been very suc­cess­ful in his ca­reer and won the Gold Cup in 2019 and 2020 with the Shiv­am Ma­haraj owned Nu­clear Pow­er and Mas­ter of War.

Gob­in, 60, showed his un­doubt­ed skill on April 24th last Sat­ur­day, when he brought the five-year-old bay mare Rio Pon­ti back from a 14-month break, to win the fifth event on the Ari­ma Race Club (ARC) sev­en-race card at San­ta Rosa Park in Ari­ma.

The race for hors­es rat­ed 70-55 over 1,100 me­tres on the turf course was ex­pect­ed to be very com­pet­i­tive but the pun­ters had faith in the skill of Gob­in and punt­ed the mare in, as the 5-2 sec­ond choice in the mar­ket de­spite her top im­post of 58 ki­los. That move paid div­i­dends.

Rio Pon­ti did not dis­ap­point in the hands of the Unit­ed States-based Prayven Badrie and once she broke well the race was about over, as she trav­elled strong­ly and ran away from her ri­vals in the style of a very good horse while record­ing the very good time of 1:03.00 for the trip.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day, Shiv­am Ma­haraj , the Prin­ci­pal own­er of the hors­es in Gob­in's ban said, "I am sad­dened by the news of his pass­ing. His fam­i­ly at this time are trau­ma­tised. Pep­si was al­ways a good train­er. He and I would talk every day. Gob­in was a very de­cent and hon­est man. He was an amaz­ing in­di­vid­ual. He looked out for every­one around him and would as­sist his grooms in any way pos­si­ble, In fact, he even asked me to hire one of his groom's wife at my es­tab­lish­ment, which I did. He was in­deed a car­ing per­son. His groom loved him and he will be sad­ly missed.

Gob­in in his ca­reer has amassed close to 18 mil­lion dol­lars in prize mon­ey from his charges in his 21 years ca­reer.

For this sea­son Gob­in has land­ed four win­ners and won purse mon­ey in ex­cess of $55,000,

In 2020 when Gob­in's Nu­clear Pow­er was ex­pect­ed to win the Gold Cup and at the late stage had to pull out, his sub­sti­tute proved wor­thy enough as Mater of War did the trick as a 'Su­per Sub" and won con­vinc­ing­ly by 5 1/4 lengths from the John O'Brien trained Apoc­a­lypse with Gen­er­al JN and Cape Canaver­al fol­low­ing.