Legality steadily rebounding from knee issues — now in Open Allowance
Having decided to up the tempo with legality at exercise, champion trainer anthony nunes is hoping that his american-bred charge will head to Open allowance class with his injury-riddled days behind him.
Nunes’ optimism came after Legality’s comfortable 3 ¼-length win in a three-yearold and upwards Overnight Allowance event at Caymanas Park on Saturday, February 6.
Legality has been a prominent Overnight Allowance contender from 2019, but suffered an injury which put him out of action for 11 months.
Since being brought back at the end of last year’s truncated season, Legality has been put to task by the champion trainer.
In those six starts over various distances between October and December of last year, Legality won once and placed second three consecutive times, with his other two performances falling below par.
However, it was a disappointing seventh-place finish in his seasonal bow on January 9, that Nunes decided to put Legality on a one-month break accompanied by two exercise gallops on January 24 and 31, respectively, which he believes resulted in his winning performance.
“He had some knee issues for almost a year so we had to give him a little time off. I trained him gingerly by doing a lot of swimming and just raced him because we were trying to win the championship last year, so we were running him in sprints, trying to earn money,” Nunes said.
“So, he (Legality) got to take a breath and came back today (Saturday) and we were pretty confident because this is the first time in 1 ½ years that we are actually getting to train him and we decided to give him some work and he responded well,” Nunes said.
Having been refreshed for his second outing this year, Legality was expected to bring pace and class into play to put away rivals easily in the curtain call contest over nine furlongs and 25 yards (1,820m) on the 10-race programme. And he duly obliged.
Despite carrying 56.5 kg (125lb), Legality, ridden by co-champion jockey Dane Nelson, broke well from the number eight draw and went straight to the front while navigating the clubhouse turn.
From there, Nelson tightly restrained Legality and relaxed the pace even as Sebastian (Oshane Nugent) and Messi (Linton Steadman) closely pursued on the backstretch.
Nelson gradually increased the tempo leaving the half-mile and opened up a two-length lead and ran away from rivals in the homestretch before easing down at the wire, stopping the clock in 1:57.3. The splits were 26.4, 51.2, 1:16.4 and 1:42.4.
Uncle Vinnie (Dick Cardenas) closed well for second, with Messi staying on for third.
“I thought it was a pretty moderate Overnight Allowance race and Legality responded well and won as expected.
“He moves up to Open Allowance now where he is going to run against tougher horses so we will see how he manages there. Legality will have to continue to train to be able to run against such horses. He has ability, but let us hope that he stays sound,” Nunes ended.