Simpson
Ainsley Walters, Staff Reporter
CHAMPION RIDER Trevor Simpson yesterday stole the show at Caymanas Park, booting home four winners, including a snappy hat-trick, to move five winners clear of challenger Brian Harding in the jockeys' standings.
The day's feature event, the 1800-metre Caymanas Track Limited (CTL) Claiming Series for $270,000-$170,000 claimers was convincingly won by trainer Delroy Waugh's JIG YOUNG, who notched his third win in less than a month at odds of 7-2, beating the 8-5 favourite BUTCHER MAN by 10 lengths.
However, the day clearly belonged to Simpson, who answered his critics in no uncertain manner, taking his tally to 78 winners, restricting Trinidadian Harding to 73 and a lone win on the 10-race card.
Simpson, who trailed Harding in the standings last Saturday but crept ahead with a three-timer on Wednesday, yesterday booted home the American debutant IMMANUEL AND KATIE (1-2) in the third, SPECIAL CAT (4-5) in the fourth and MY PLEASURE (8-5) in the sixth before crowning his four-timer with even-money favourite KAMIR, giving trainer Richard Azan the day's biggest purse, the $390,000 Overnight Allowance at 1200 metres.
Harding, who started the afternoon two winners behind Simpson, drew first blood in the second race, winning aboard 6-5 favourite JACK EM UP at 1100 metres but had no answer for Simpson's onslaught in the following three races.
BETTER RIDES
"He got the better rides today," Harding, a seven-time champion in Trinidad and Tobago said after finishing fourth with PRIOR PARK in the day's final race.
"I didn't get any good rides for the past two days. One day I'll get good rides," he added, pointing out there were 15 race days left in the year.
"We've still got two months to go," he said. "This is racing and anything can happen but he's the hometown favourite to win the championship.
"For me, if it comes, it comes. I'm just here to ride winners for my owner and trainer," he said, referring to the team of trainer Anthony Nunes and Barbadian owner Elias Haloute to whom he is contracted in Jamaica.
Simpson who holds the record of most wins in a single season, 172, after he smashed George HoSang's 167 in 2003, is hunting his fourth straight and sixth overall jockeys' title at Caymanas Park.
The top jockey said he was not perturbed when Harding had slipped one win ahead last Saturday.
"I wasn't worried," he said. "My agent has been working hard and knows exactly where to tell the trainers to place their horses."
The champion jockey scoffed at Harding's claims of him getting the better rides for the past two days.
"What about all those horses he has been getting from (Gary) Subratie," he asked?
"He gets good rides too, Simpson hit back."
Azan was the day's leading trainer, completing a quick double with KAMIR in the ninth and RAGING STORM in the closing event.
KAMIR, Azan said, is almost back to himself after completing the 1200-metre distance in 1:13.3, galloping strongly in the stretch run to turn back Subratie's PRECOCIOUS MISS D, who lost second close to home to stablemate SPANISH SECRETS.
COMING BACK
"He's coming back, maybe 85 per cent of himself and ran a much better race today," he said of the 2004 Champion Two-Year-Old, who had finished a disappointing seventh in the 2000 Guineas in April and won his first race of the year yesterday after seven starts.
Azan disclosed that KAMIR's next outing will be the 1200-metre Red Stripe Caribbean Sprint Championship on Superstakes Day, Novermber 12, giving up on the rich Red Stripe Superstakes at 2000 metres.
"He has definitely shown now that he's most effective at six to six-and-a-half furlongs," said Azan. "We will take our chances in the sprint in which A KING IS BORN will be hard to beat but this is racing and anything can happen."
