Lord Kitch­en­er's Ca­lyp­so "Trou­ble In Ari­ma" may well be the sound­track for lo­cal rac­ing in the up­com­ing weeks, since own­ers and train­ers have been in­formed that there will be no 'Triple Crown' this year.

They re­ceived no­tice by virtue of a meet­ing held last week of the Fram­ing Com­mit­tee that the Mid­sum­mer Clas­sic, which the ARC stat­ed was a cre­ative ef­fort to race hors­es on both sur­faces to de­ter­mine the 'Triple Crown' cham­pi­on. The Mid­sum­mer Clas­sic was slat­ed to be run off on the turf course.

Pres­i­dent of the ARC Robert Bernard on Au­gust 26 stat­ed that "should the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic, not let up and we are un­able to get clear­ance un­til Oc­to­ber then the 'Triple Crown' races will be con­test­ed be­gin­ning in Oc­to­ber, No­vem­ber with the pres­ti­gious fi­nal leg, the Trinidad Der­by be­ing run off on De­cem­ber 26, Box­ing Day".

The news com­ing out of San­ta Rosa Park is that many stake­hold­ers are not hap­py with the de­ci­sion to not host any 'Triple Crown'.

Own­er Lawrence Warn­er, who has Just Ex­hale set to take his chance in the Triple Crown se­ries, is very dis­ap­point­ed at the po­si­tion tak­en by the ARC.

He said, "I have been a horse own­er for sev­er­al years and at this point, I am very con­cerned on the di­rec­tion that is be­ing pro­posed, in re­spect to the Clas­sic Di­ary as it re­lates to the 'Triple Crown'. Yes, I agree that it is a New Norm, but as seen all over the world, some­how rac­ing fra­ter­ni­ties can en­sure that at least the 'Triple Crown' is of pri­ma­ry con­cern.

"The idea of just scrap­ing one of the legs' with­out con­sul­ta­tion is of grave con­cern to us. As Own­ers, our pri­or­i­ty is hav­ing a three-year-old com­pete in the 'Triple Crown'. This would af­ford us all, the op­por­tu­ni­ty in win­ning all legs. Horse own­ers will not in­vest un­less the ''car­rot'' on the oth­er end al­lows one to com­pete.

"My sug­ges­tion is that this Oc­to­ber, No­vem­ber and De­cem­ber can be used for the Triple Crown events. The idea of the Gold Cup is a fo­cus should be re­con­sid­ered. The Gold Cup can run in the fol­low­ing months of Jan­u­ary or Feb­ru­ary 2022...and then have the op­tion of the new four-year-old hors­es en­ter­ing.

"One must al­so take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the horse pop­u­la­tion and do what is best for rac­ing and not just one's sta­bles," said Warn­er.

"I en­tered rac­ing via Hugh Hen­der­son, in the eight­ies for a num­ber of years and we had suc­cess with Ba­ju­ka to name a few. I mi­grat­ed to Eng­land and re­turned in 2006 to rac­ing via Glenn Mendez. I was for­tu­nate to win the Mid­sum­mer and Caribbean Cham­pi­on Stakes in 2008 with Just In Time and al­so in 2009, the Ja­maican Stakes via Der­rick Mosca. The idea of com­pe­ti­tion is what keeps us, the own­ers, in the game.

Ac­cord­ing to Warn­er, this year, there are not many three-year-olds that are con­sid­ered "Clas­sic" ma­te­r­i­al, main­ly lo­cals and of the 10 /12 hors­es, most are from the O'Brien Sta­bles and three are from out­side sta­bles, be­ing Ar­salan from the Alex­is Sta­bles, Pa­ta Pa­ta from the De­fre­itas Sta­bles and Just Ex­hale from the Ter­rance Thomas Sta­bles.

"There al­so may be one or two oth­er own­ers who were con­sid­er­ing for ex­am­ple en­ter­ing the Mid­sum­mer, as it was ini­tial­ly de­cid­ed to have that Clas­sic on grass, and this Clas­sic has now been re­moved with­out con­sen­sus.

"I im­plore that se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion is giv­en to the Triple Crown Clas­sics, as the heart­beat of rac­ing will be de­ter­mined on the fu­ture pro­pos­als put for­ward by those re­spon­si­ble.

"In end­ing, I think my horse could well beat Ar­salan and I am look­ing for­ward to win­ning the 'Triple Crown' se­ries. My horse will be clos­ing at the end and I think he could out­stay them."

Own­er Dwight Hunte who bought a year­ling for the pur­pose of win­ning a 'Triple Crown' is dis­ap­point­ed at the fact that the Mid­sum­mer Clas­sic has been tak­en off the Clas­sic Di­ary by the ARC Fram­ing Com­mit­tee.

"I bought Alani from Hugh Lee King and I am of the opin­ion that she will be a very good turf horse and I was of the be­lief that this was my big chance to win a Clas­sic. Are you say­ing I spent mon­ey on a year­ling to see it race in the 'Triple Crown' events and now my op­por­tu­ni­ty has been tak­en away?

"I want­ed to run her in the Mid­sum­mer Clas­sic and as any own­er, the 'Triple Crown' races are where you want to go when you pur­chase a year­ling. I am in­deed un­hap­py at the in­con­sis­ten­cy. From my per­spec­tive, if you can­not have all three have 'None'. In­stead, have one race for the three-year-old and call it 'The Three-Year-Old Stakes' for at least two-thirds of the prize mon­ey of two 'Triple Crown' races and I be­lieve every­one will be hap­py. But just don't leave out the Mid­sum­mer Clas­sic at your whim and fan­cy. My op­tions should al­ways be there to race. At this junc­ture, I feel as though I have no op­tion."

The Lester Alex­is trained three-year-old Ar­salan was set to win the Na­tive Bred 'Triple Crown' on Au­gust 31 (In­de­pen­dence Day 2021) but that op­por­tu­ni­ty has been lost.

The Nigel Amin owned three-year-old is the lead­ing three-year-old in train­ing and could al­so win the 'Open Triple Crown'. The Na­tive Bred 'Triple Crown' races are the Roy­al Colours Clas­sic, the Chief Com­man­der Clas­sic and the Breed­ers Clas­sic. The Roy­al Colours was con­test­ed on Feb­ru­ary 6, the Chief Com­man­der Clas­sic on March 27 and the fi­nal leg of the Breed­ers Clas­sic was set for Au­gust 31.