RACE DAY ANALYSIS Saturday, March 30, 2024
GIFTED the featured 15th staging of the 1,500-metre King’s Plate, formerly a Grade One event but now restricted to the Overnight Allowance category, top-rated Mama Mia (9-5) dominated the early fractions and stayed on well to best eight rivals.
Trained by the Jason Dacosta, and ridden by imported reinsman Josue Osorio, a native of Panama whose career record there read 70 winners from 974 rides, Mamma Mia, heroine of the 2023 Jamaica 1000 Guineas and Oaks, scored by just over one length.
Osorio’s first win locally was the second of two successes for the Dacosta 2023 champion and current season-leading outfit.
The first came in race four with the promising undefeated, 3-5 bet Funcaandun (USA), partnered exclusively by Shamaree Muir to date, beat the closest of eight rivals by just over one length in the 1300-metre gallop. This is win number three, and the talented colt will be competing at the highest level sooner rather than later.
Sharing the spotlight with the King’s Plate was the divided 2024 Grooms Association Trophy, with the Fabian White-led entity’s honorees in Keith Dixon, Wayne Dawes, Delroy Little, Clive Lawrence, Vaughn Taylor, Maurice Hart, Nathaniel Nelson, Raymond Irwin, Michael Smith, and Carlos Martin recognised appropriately.
The first leg of the1000-metre straight grooms’ event, run as race seven, was won by 5-2 bet Oasis Jak (USA), trained by Rohan Crichton and proved to be the third of three winners for leading jockey Tevin Foster.
Race eight, the second leg of the grooms’ event, went to 9-1 shot California Gold, with two-kilogramme claiming reinsman supplying the riding honours for trainer Patrick Lynch.
Back now to the exploits of Foster. His first came in the 1,300-metre opener, with Kingswood (2-1) a near-five-length winner for trainer Ryan Darby.
Almost unbelievably, this nine-yearold grey horse career performance is highly unusual with eight wins, eight seconds, and four third placings from only 38 starts, with lengthy breaks in his long racing life.
Foster then had to wait an hour to confirm another winner as the intervening second event over 1,400 metres was won under a bustling effort from Phillip Parchment aboard Great Wayne for conditioner Marlon Pusey’s charge to score by three parts of a length at odds of 5-2.
In race three over 1,000 metres straight, Parchment rode the ageing Fiery Path (3-1) to be second but suffered a fall, beyond the winning post, with resulting injuries requiring hospital care.
The winner, Undecided (2-1), saddled by owner/trainer Steven Todd, proved to be Foster’s second of the eventual three.
Race five, over 1,200 metres, a maiden condition for four-year-olds and upwards, was won by Phiny, coming home just under three lengths clear at odds of 6-1, with two-kilogramme claimer Shane Richardson executing the jockeyship for trainer Ricardo Brown.
In race six, run at 1,400 metres and restricted to three-year-old maidens, went the Anthony Nunes-schooled Captain Sparrow (Reyan Lewis), bettering his nearest opponent by better than three lengths in this his second career start.
Owned by Supreme Ventures Racing and Entertainment Limited Executive Chairman Solomon Sharpe and trained by Owen Sharpe, Bullet proof coffee (USA) won the 10th and closing event by five-and-a-half lengths.
The four-year-old bay filly, ridden by Jerome Innis, was sent off as the favourite at odds 6-5. She should have more success in her immediate future and was one of the three progressive Us-bred winners on the card.
The Training Feat Award is presented to Ryan Darby for the preparation of Kingswood. The Best Winning Gallop came from the hooves of Funcaandun (USA), who against Us-bred Wall Street Trader, a past winner in America, showed speed, stamina and courage to execute the Best Winning Gallop with pilot Shamaree Muir’s performance worthy of the Jockeyship Award.