The 2024 edi­tion of the ARC’s Stew­ards Cup will be run off on No­vem­ber 30 and an in­ter­est­ing field has paid their subs to take part in this edi­tion.  

Far re­moved from its glo­ry days at ei­ther the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain or even at San­ta Rosa Park, Ari­ma up to four or five years ago, the race once billed as the Sprint Cham­pi­onship of the Caribbean and which at­tract­ed hors­es from Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica in its hey­day, will, this year, see a fresh bunch of im­port­ed an­i­mals con­test the event for the first time in many years.  

Sub­scrip­tions have been paid for four of the re­cent­ly im­port­ed hors­es to T&T - Sneaky Cheeky, Mia’s Cat, The God­dess Nike and Strik­ing Chrome.  The lo­cal­ly-bred hors­es are rep­re­sent­ed by the last two Der­by win­ners, In the Head­lines and Head­lines Again, as well as Crown Prince and C’est La Vie. Ja­maica is rep­re­sent­ed by the come­back kid, again, Gen­er­al JN.

Gen­er­al JN has not raced in over a year and makes yet an­oth­er come­back. He did some­thing sim­i­lar in 2022 and man­aged to be suc­cess­ful in that year’s edi­tion of the Stew­ards Cup and it could be that he will be good enough to suc­ceed once again. At his best, he would be much bet­ter than this bunch, un­der the watch­ful eye of new train­er Johnathan Ly­der, it is left to be seen how he pro­gress­es some two years lat­er af­ter a lengthy lay-off as he is quite long in the tooth now.  

An­oth­er one who made a come­back a bit ear­li­er in the year was Crown Prince. He has had a num­ber of races un­der his belt and has ac­tu­al­ly shown a pref­er­ence for the short­er dis­tance be­ing a com­fort­able win­ner over that dis­tance against many of his Stew­ards Cup ri­vals ear­li­er in this sea­son.  He dis­ap­point­ed on his next start and his well­ness will have to be tak­en on trust but the wily John O’Brien al­ways has a plan.

Head­lines Again, the 2024 Der­by win­ner was bit­ter­ly dis­ap­point­ing in her last start when an odds-on favourite to beat a mod­er­ate bunch. She fin­ished last that day and some­thing was clear­ly amiss. In the hope that that was a one-off event, she would have an ex­cel­lent chance against this bunch if back to her best and her con­nec­tions would not risk the fil­ly if they did not think she had put what­ev­er trou­bled her that day be­hind her.

The 2023 Der­by win­ner, In the Head­lines, had been dis­ap­point­ing be­fore a run­away suc­cess over 1,350 me­tres ear­li­er in the sea­son. She was an­oth­er that was well held be­hind a num­ber of her ri­vals on her last start and is an­oth­er on a re­trieval mis­sion. 

C’est La Vie is tak­ing her chance be­cause she did some­thing sim­i­lar last year and sur­prised every­one when hit­ting the board. It will be an­oth­er sur­prise in 2024.

The ones who are not on re­trieval mis­sions are the four im­port­ed hors­es who have all shown enough abil­i­ty to win this event. In­ter­est­ing­ly, the one who has pro­gressed the least since mak­ing its de­but is The God­dess Nike. She was an im­pres­sive de­but win­ner but has strug­gled in her sub­se­quent starts when well be­hind the oth­er im­port­ed run­ners in the event. Mia’s Cat has shown very good form in her two starts, af­ter fin­ish­ing sec­ond to Strik­ing Chrome on her de­but, she hosed up in her sec­ond start on Oc­to­ber 26. She con­tin­ues to train well and will be dan­ger­ous.

Strik­ing Chrome was sec­ond to like­ly race favourite Sneaky Cheeky over 1,350 me­tres on Oc­to­ber 26 with The God­dess Nike and In the Head­lines be­hind in third and fourth.  

Sneaky Cheeky has two wins and one sec­ond in her four starts in this coun­try and while her sec­ond was to In The Head­lines, she has been very im­pres­sive in her two wins. She will take a lot of beat­ing in the Stew­ards Cup.

The sea­son will come to an end on Box­ing Day and it can on­ly be hoped that the 2025 sea­son can build on what was a rea­son­ably suc­cess­ful 2024 sea­son.  

Dil­lon Khelawan should be crowned the Cham­pi­on Jock­ey and that will be well de­served for some­one who has been the best rid­er in this coun­try for the last few years, with­out win­ning the ti­tle pre­vi­ous­ly. Khelawan is a great judge of pace and tac­tics and can ad­just his rid­ing tac­tics to suit the horse and train­er’s in­struc­tions, but most of all he is able to change based on race sit­u­a­tion which makes him so much su­pe­ri­or to the rest.

O’Brien will win an­oth­er train­er’s ti­tle but he will like­ly face a big­ger chal­lenge in 2025 though with the best horse in the coun­try in his sta­ble, Hel­lo World, in his sta­ble, he should put up an­oth­er mighty de­fence. A lot will de­pend on the suc­cess of the three-year-olds in 2025 with Glenn Mendez hav­ing the club house leader, Mar­malade, so far.  

Good luck to all pun­ters.