Sweet Majesty upsets rivals in Allan E ‘Billy’ Williams feature
EDWARD Stanberry’s Sweet Majesty has always been known to produce a surprising run every now and again and, as expected, one of those efforts came to the fore on Saturday as she topped the Allan E “Billy” Williams Memorial Trophy event at Caymanas Park.
The five-year-old bay mare (Soul Warrior-bitter End), who was among those out for the first time this season, brought fresh legs into play with a late surge in the latter stages of the threeyear-old and upwards Non-restricted Overnight Allowance contest over seven furlongs (1,400m).
Sent off at odds of 29-1 Sweet Majesty, piloted by Paul Francis, was expectedly held off the early fractions set by Billy Whizz (Robert Halledeen) — with Big Big Daddy (Dane Dawkins) and Daddy Jones (Youville Pinnock) in tow — flashing past the five-furlong mark.
Leaving the half mile, Billy Whizz gradually opened up before being joined by The Good Witch (Roger Hewitt) approaching the stretch run.
When they got there a number of horses were spread across the track, all aiming to get first run on the field, but it was Sweet Majesty that burst through the pack and pulled away at the furlong pole to finish tops, giving her trainer and jockey their first wins for 2023.
She won ahead of Michael Marlowe’s fast-finishing pair of Marquesas (Oshane Nugent) and Positive ID (Reyan Lewis), with Crimson (Raddesh Roman) in fourth.
They completed the distance in 1:27.2, behind splits of 23.3, 47.0 and 1:13.0.
Meanwhile, Reyan Lewis topped all riders with a double aboard Spencer Chung’s General Chief in the sixth and Shadowfax in the penultimate race for trainer Lawrence Freemantle, taking his tally to six this season.