KELVIN 'N'

Train­er Harold Chadee was cer­tain that his sta­ble star Re­gal In­ten­sion would win big at the Ari­ma Race Club's (ARC) Thurs­day Evening Lime at San­ta Rosa Park, Ari­ma.

Chadee sent out the best three-year-old in his sta­ble thus far and the son of West­ern Clas­sic did not dis­ap­point. Chadee, who has giv­en this year's St James Stakes win­ner Re­gal In­ten­sion one race for the sea­son, was cer­tain that he would per­form su­perbly and cer­tain­ly made his in­ten­tions known as to what he ex­pects from the son of West­ern Clas­sic/Wap.

Re­gal In­ten­sion won eas­i­ly on his sea­son­al ap­pear­ance when he beat Nabawi by 1 3/4 length un­der ap­pren­tice Ki­ran Raza­ck. How­ev­er, on Thurs­day it was a dif­fer­ent day as Re­gal In­ten­sion vir­tu­al­ly bolt­ed home by five lengths in the time of 1:20.00.

The record now shows that Re­gal In­ten­sion has tak­en on the old­er hors­es for a sec­ond time in the Mod­i­fied Bench­mark Hand­i­cap for three-year-old and over hors­es rat­ed 60-45 go­ing over a dis­tance of 1,300 me­tres and the re­sult was the same.

Many was ex­pect­ing a good per­for­mance, one that could put Re­gal In­ten­sion in­to all the note­books for the "Triple Crown". He sure­ly did by his as­tound­ing per­for­mance and his train­er Harold Chadee was in­deed a hap­py man.

Cer­tain­ly, John O’Brien has the fire pow­er with three of the best three-year-olds in the coun­try in his sta­ble. O’Brien con­di­tions Shes So Spec­tac­u­la, Mak­ing Head­lines and Ap­poca­lypse. It is a tough call for any horse to stop the dom­i­nance of O’Brien but Chadee has Re­gal In­ten­sion primed to do same.

Chadee has been churn­ing out win­ners and three weeks ago he sad­dled two win­ners when Evening Jew­el and Re­gal In­ten­tion scored for him.

"That was a very good per­for­mance and he pro­duced a good time. He is well bred and will be even bet­ter when he goes around two turns. He is by West­ern Clas­sic and that counts for some­thing. He has im­proved and I hope he con­tin­ues in this vein for the next eight months," said Chadee, who was beam­ing af­ter the race.

Young Raza­ck broke him alert­ly and be­fore the hors­es raced 200m, Re­gal In­ten­sion was pulling dou­bles over his ri­vals. Re­gal In­ten­sion and Raza­ck opened a two-length lead go­ing to the far turn and noth­ing could peg back the son of West­ern Clas­sic/Wap.

Raza­ck, who again part­nered the colt, said, "He broke well and I al­lowed him to get in­to his stride but once we got to the far turn, he was firm­ly in com­mand. I asked him to run in the fi­nal 200m and he showed a great at­ti­tude and he gal­loped in style to the line. He is a very good colt."

Chadee too was very en­thused with Re­gal In­ten­sion per­for­mance in beat­ing the old­er hors­es over 1,300m say­ing: "He won well and to beat these old­er hors­es in that man­ner says that he has im­proved. When you looked at him in the ring you could see that he tight­ened up. He is well bred and on both sides of his pedi­gree, he will no doubt stay.

"His dam Wap is by Vic­to­ry Gal­lop, there­fore he looks cer­tain to stay. I know that I have some oth­er Ja­maican bred three-year-olds to send out and they could be any­thing. Some are su­perbly bred and I am look­ing for­ward to see­ing them race. It is ear­ly times now when it comes to the 'Triple Crown'. We will have wait and see but he is bound to be a Triple Crown' con­tender."

Clear­ly, Chadee has in­ten­tions of win­ning this year's Der­by.