The 2022 Trinidad Der­by will take place on Sat­ur­day (Sep­tem­ber 24) at the Ari­ma Race Club in San­ta Rosa Park.

While the race and the Triple Crown se­ries are both shad­ows of their for­mer selves, there must be a Der­by win­ner though this year, there will be no Triple Crown win­ner. The win­ners of the first two legs are both ex­pect­ed to face the starter on Sat­ur­day. Crown Prince was the 2021 two-year-old cham­pi­on and an un­beat­en win­ner of the Guineas.  

The wheels came off this run­ner when he was beat­en in his last two starts in­clud­ing the Mid­sum­mer Clas­sic. It is any­one’s guess whether he can re­turn to his for­mer self and win the Der­by. So­ca Har­mo­ny was the sur­pris­ing win­ner of the Mid­sum­mer Clas­sic, pri­mar­i­ly be­cause she had been fair­ly well ex­posed as be­ing in­fe­ri­or to her sta­ble com­pan­ion.  

How­ev­er in the Clas­sic, un­der vet­er­an rid­er No­bel Abrego, she stormed away from Crown Prince in the home straight, to not on­ly catch every­one by sur­prise but to leave cham­pi­on jock­ey Bri­an Boodram­s­ingh, shak­ing his head in dis­be­lief.  

On that Clas­sic form, So­ca Har­mo­ny is the one to beat in the Der­by. Al­though there are six oth­er hors­es ex­pect­ed to face the starter, three of them, JCPey­ton, Mag­i­cal World and Princess Aruna prob­a­bly have ze­ro chance in the race.

The oth­er three, Bay View, Davin­dra and Sha­reef have out­side chances at best. All three are maid­en win­ners and high­ly re­gard­ed by their con­nec­tions but none of them have shown enough to sug­gest that they can trou­ble the top two. In a less com­pet­i­tive event than usu­al, I think So­ca Har­mo­ny can con­tin­ue her pro­gres­sion and pro­vide af­fa­ble own­er  Lester Moore with his first well-de­served Der­by win­ner.

On the 24th, UK rac­ing fans will al­so ex­pe­ri­ence the Fu­ture Cham­pi­ons Day at New­mar­ket with the Roy­al Lodge (Group 2), Mid­dle Park (Group 1) and Cheve­ley Park (Group 1) Stakes sched­uled to be run off.

On this day last year, fu­ture 2022 Eng­lish 2000 Guineas win­ner, the ill-fat­ed Coroe­bus, was on dis­play in the Roy­al Lodge. Pun­ters can ex­pect to see a lot of good clues for the 2023 Clas­sics in these three races. The most in­trigu­ing con­tender in the Roy­al Lodge is the Gos­dens’ Frankel colt, Ar­rest.  This colt was an im­pres­sive win­ner of his last start and Sandown and is bred to get bet­ter as the dis­tances get longer. He will face stiff com­pe­ti­tion from the like­ly favourite, Godol­phin’s un­beat­en Naval Pow­er and any one of the bat­tal­ion of run­ners en­tered by Aidan O’Brien. The fi­nal field will be known on Fri­day but Ar­rest is the one that ap­peals most at like­ly at­trac­tive odds.

The Cheve­ley Park looks very com­pet­i­tive with three last time out Group win­ners, Tril­li­um, win­ner of the Fly­ing Childers, Lezoo, win­ner of the Princess Mar­garet, and Swinga­long, win­ner of the Lowther, ex­pect­ed to face the starter.  The one I like, how­ev­er, is Godol­phin’s Mawj, who was un­for­tu­nate when fourth be­hind Swinga­long on her last start hav­ing been an im­pres­sive win­ner of the Duchess of Cam­bridge Stakes at New­mar­ket (beat­ing Lezoo) pre­vi­ous­ly.  

The Mid­dle Park is an­oth­er very com­pet­i­tive event with the likes of Marsh­man (sec­ond in Gim­crack); the Prix Morny 1-2-3, Black­beard, Per­sian Force and The An­tar­tic; Sire­nia win­ner, Mis­chief Mag­ic; and Rich­mond Stakes 1-2, Roy­al Scots­man and Al Kar­rar; all ex­pect­ed to line up. Of these run­ners, Aidan O’Brien’s Black­beard ap­peals most.

On the 24th, US rac­ing fans can look for­ward to the Grade 1s Penn­syl­va­nia Der­by and Cotil­lon Stakes at Parx. In the for­mer, some of the top three-year-old colts in the US are ex­pect­ed to face the starter in­clud­ing Haskell Stakes (Grade 1) one-two, Cy­berknife (sub­se­quent­ly run­ner up in the Tra­vers) and Tai­ba; Ken­tucky Der­by third-place fin­ish­er, Zan­don; the top three from the West Vir­ginia Der­by, Skip­py­long­stock­ing, We the Peo­ple and Sim­pli­fi­ca­tion; and Ohio Der­by win­ner and Jim Dandy third-place fin­ish­er, Tawny Port. Of this loaded field, Cy­berknife and Zan­don stand out but the lat­ter has to re­bound from a poor run in the Tra­vers and Cy­berknife is giv­en the edge for train­er Brad Cox.

With ex­cel­lent races in the UK and US, rac­ing fans are in for a rac­ing treat on Re­pub­lic Day, even if the lo­cal fare pales by com­par­i­son. Nonethe­less, the Trinidad Der­by will take place and we can on­ly hope that the sup­port­ing card is more ex­cit­ing than the fea­ture race it­self.

Hap­py Re­pub­lic Day to all!