ED­MON­TON, Al­ber­ta – Ja­maican jock­ey Dane Nel­son won the fea­ture CAN$50 000 Al­ber­ta Sire Stakes Der­by Stakes with 8-1 choice Big Bad In­taglio but was forced to share ho­n­ours on Sat­ur­day’s 10-race card with Bar­ba­di­an Desmond Bryan who rode a dou­ble.

Go­ing 6-½ fur­longs in race sev­en, the 38-year-old Nel­son pro­duced a clin­i­cal ride aboard the brown colt to beat the three-year-olds by three-quar­ters of a length in a time of one minute, 18.07 sec­onds.

Two-to-one choice Lil Zap­per led for most of the trip but fad­ed to fin­ish sec­ond while favourite Mu­d­i­na­tor was a length back in third.

Nel­son en­tered the fea­ture af­ter fin­ish­ing out of the top three in the pre­ced­ing three races but mus­tered a su­perb ef­fort to get Big Bad In­taglio over the line first.

Lil Zap­per carved out the ear­ly splits, post­ing 22.26 sec­onds for the quar­ter and 45.27 for the half-mile, with Rough Cus­tomer, Kiss Me Hel­lo and Mu­d­i­na­tor chas­ing, and Big Bad In­taglio near the rear of the sev­en-horse field.

Mu­d­i­na­tor chal­lenged the leader at the three-six­teenth but Nel­son roused Big Bad In­taglio at the top of the stretch to out­run his chal­lengers.

Mean­while, the 51-year-old Bryan found suc­cess in the day’s open­er when he scored with 10-1 chance Tim­bers Moon in a 350-yard dash, be­fore re­turn­ing to win race eight over six fur­longs with an­oth­er 10-1 bet Ru­mohr Reigns.

In the lat­ter, Bryan stalked with the five-year-old geld­ing be­fore en­gag­ing pace­set­ter Smart Play and pulling clear, and then hold­ing off favourite Boss Man Can and 2-1 bet Fa­ther O’Fla­her­ty.

Latch­man stars with dou­ble to ex­tend form

CHARLES TOWN, West Vir­ginia – Bar­ba­di­an jock­ey Re­shawn Latch­man sus­tained his rich form at Charles Town, win­ning twice on Fri­day’s eight-race pro­gramme in the south­ern Unit­ed States.

Latch­man cap­tured the US$19 600 race six with favourite Ox Doc be­fore re­turn­ing to win the $15 200 race eight aboard 9-1 choice Black Pan­da.

Fol­low­ing his lat­est suc­cess, Latch­man lies fourth in the stand­ings on 41 wins from 250 starts, four adrift of Car­los Lopez, with Ar­nal­do Bo­cachi­ca al­ready well clear at the top on 85 wins, 30 clear of Mar­shall Mendez.

Latch­man opened his ac­count in a sharp 4-½ fur­long sprint, when he led the four-year-old brown geld­ing Ox Doc to a 3-¼ length win over the three-year-olds and up­wards.

They ini­tial­ly du­elled with 10-1 bet Storm Trappe be­fore draw­ing clear to get to the wire with­out a se­ri­ous chal­lenger.

Latch­man’s sec­ond win came in an­oth­er 4-½ fur­long sprint when he con­jured up a late run with five-year-old bay mare Black Pan­da to get the bet­ter of the three-year-old and up­ward fil­lies and mares by 1-¼ lengths.

Favourite Lit­tle Bit of That and 8-1 chance Cap­tain Sam du­elled ear­ly be­fore Latch­man roused Black Pan­da in the up­per stretch to take com­mand.

(CMC)