WIN­NIPEG, Man­i­to­ba – Bar­ba­di­an ap­pren­tice Rachaad Knights won twice at Assini­boia Downs here Mon­day, to con­tin­ue his im­pres­sive start to the sea­son in cen­tral Cana­da.

Knights opened his ac­count aboard Prairie Drifter in race two over sev­en fur­longs, car­ry­ing the 2-1 choice to a sol­id half-length win over the three-year-olds and up­ward.

The pair made all the run­ning, fend­ing off an ear­ly chal­lenge from favourite Bronze One to con­trol the frac­tions and the fi­nal stretch run.

Knight re­turned in race five to win with favourite Maclean’s Bel­la, com­bin­ing with the five-year-old bay mare to dis­miss the three-year-old and up­ward fil­lies and mares by 3-3/4 lengths.

In a six fur­long sprint, Maclean’s Bel­la stormed to a com­fort­able lead through the quar­ter with Load Abroad and Maibel­la in pur­suit, be­fore hold­ing well in the stretch and reach­ing the wire with­out a se­ri­ous chal­lenger.

Knights, in his de­but sea­son at Assini­boia, lies a re­mark­able fourth in the jock­eys stand­ings on 14 wins, one be­hind fel­low coun­try­men An­to­nio White­hall and Damario By­noe, with Trinida­di­an Prayven Badrie top on 18.

Sev­er­al Caribbean rid­ers found them­selves in the win­ners’ cir­cle on the card which was lim­it­ed to five races due to bad weath­er.

Bar­ba­di­an Dario Dal­rym­ple cap­tured the open­ing race over six fur­longs with favourite Jack­ie’s Thun­der , beat­ing the three-year-old and up­ward maid­en fil­lies and mares by four lengths.

White­hall, mean­while, won race three with 2-1 chance Noi­wont­back­down, tak­ing the four-year-old geld­ing to a half-length score over the three-year-old and up­ward maid­ens.

And Ja­maican Neville Stephen­son al­so tast­ed suc­cess when he com­bined with 8-1 bet Smart Call to edge favourite Maybe Some­time by a neck, in a sev­en fur­long trip for the three-year-olds and up­ward in race four.

CMC