They call him Flash—not just be­cause he’s fast, but be­cause there’s some­thing hero­ic in the way he runs: bold, de­ter­mined, and im­pos­si­ble to ig­nore.

From the mo­ment he took his first steps, even be­fore he learned to crawl, Gabriel Cae­sar was al­ways in mo­tion. He would dash through clin­ic doors, keep­ing staff and his moth­er, Tes­sa Dray­ton, breath­less in pur­suit. His love for run­ning came nat­u­ral­ly, but a near-death ex­pe­ri­ence made it clear his en­er­gy need­ed di­rec­tion.

One morn­ing, af­ter a rou­tine clin­ic vis­it, Gabriel slipped from his moth­er’s hands and ran through a tun­nel to­ward a busy main road in Mt Hope. Thank­ful­ly, a near­by ven­dor act­ed quick­ly and saved him just in time. That mo­ment changed every­thing.

De­ter­mined to chan­nel his speed in­to some­thing mean­ing­ful, Gabriel was en­rolled in the Abi­lene Wild­cats Ath­let­ic Club at just five years old. What be­gan as play­ful com­pe­ti­tion soon trans­formed in­to pur­pose. As he grew old­er, so did his am­bi­tion—to earn a schol­ar­ship, se­cure op­por­tu­ni­ties, and one day rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

“I start­ed tak­ing run­ning se­ri­ous­ly when my mum­my told me it could help me get a schol­ar­ship,” Gabriel said.

“My coach al­so talks to me and oth­er ath­letes about work­ing hard, so we can one day com­pete for Trinidad, and that al­so in­spires me.”

It was dur­ing train­ing one af­ter­noon that an old­er ath­lete called him Flash—a nick­name sparked by his speed, bound­less en­er­gy, fierce spir­it, and a heart to match.

“The nick­name ‘Flash’ means I am fast,” he said with a smile. “I feel hap­py and proud when peo­ple call me that, be­cause Flash is a su­per­hero with su­per speed.”

Like the su­per­hero, Gabriel has faced mo­ments of ex­haus­tion, but his fo­cus nev­er wa­vers. His pas­sion fu­els his per­sis­tence.

“When train­ing feels hard or ex­haust­ing, I think about the schol­ar­ship I want to earn and my dream of be­com­ing a pi­lot,” he said.

At just ten years old, Gabriel has al­ready made his mark on the track. This year, he earned a bronze medal in the 300m at the Dis­trict-lev­el Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Track and Field meet and was a fi­nal­ist in the Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools 3K road race in To­ba­go.

He al­so de­liv­ered a stand-out per­for­mance at the NAAA 2025 Ju­ve­nile Cham­pi­onships, where he com­pet­ed in the 400m and 800m—achiev­ing per­son­al bests in both, and helped lead the youngest team in the 1,000m open re­lay to a hard-fought third-place tie, a race de­fined by grit, team­work, and heart. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he se­cured third place in the Nestlé for Kids’ Boys 1K, once again set­ting a per­son­al best.

To­day, Gabriel trains un­der new coach­ing man­age­ment at Red Line Ath­let­ic Club, prepar­ing both phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly in the off-sea­son with drills, en­durance train­ing, and strength-build­ing rou­tines. Off the track, he’s equal­ly ded­i­cat­ed—a Stan­dard Five pupil at Ari­ma West Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, prepar­ing for the 2026 SEA ex­am with dreams of at­tend­ing Hillview Col­lege.

“My dream is to get a schol­ar­ship to Eu­rope, study avi­a­tion, and run for Trinidad,” he said. “I plan to work hard at both my run­ning and my school work to make that dream come true.”

Gabriel Cae­sar isn’t just chas­ing medals; he’s build­ing a lega­cy with every stride, tak­ing one fear­less step at a time.