KELVIN 'N'

Twen­ty-six-year-old Tris­tan Phillips has been rid­ing since 2015 and is the lead­ing rid­er in T&T for this sea­son. Phillips con­tin­ued his great form on In­de­pen­dence Day when land­ing two win­ners for cham­pi­on train­er John O'Brien.

On the 61st an­niver­sary of this coun­try's In­de­pen­dence - Day 10 of the Ari­ma Race Club's rac­ing sea­son, Phillip rode the "Race Of The Day' when he part­nered the four-year-old fil­ly Princess Aruna to a re­sound­ing 1 3/4-length vic­to­ry in the Grade One -In­de­pen­dence Cup over 1,800 me­tres on the main track at San­ta Rosa Park, Ari­ma.

When Guardian Me­dia spoke to Phillips he was beam­ing with pride, hav­ing won two of the six races on the card at San­ta Rosa Park. Phillips had four rides on Day nine and be­gan the day with a flour­ish win­ning eas­i­ly by 7 1/4 lengths with Blind­ing Lights from Princess Roy­al in the third event. He turned in the fourth race to be fifth aboard El Chapo. He then came back to part­ner Princess Aruna in the fea­ture be­fore fin­ish­ing ninth aboard Mag­nifi­co in race six.

He said, "On this oc­ca­sion, I broke the Even-Mon­ey favourite Princess Aruna well and I was very con­tent­ed to take a tow. Crown Prince was go­ing well at the front with Fin­ish­ing Touch and my horse was a lit­tle un­bal­anced go­ing down the back straight and she was a bit fur­ther back than I ex­pect­ed. How­ev­er, I was con­fi­dent and nev­er pan­icked. How­ev­er, with 500 me­tres left, I switched her to the out­side and she re­spond­ed. With 400m, left I knew it was all over as she quick­ened up well and ran on strong­ly. I am cer­tain she would win when she hit the front and left Crown Prince trail­ing. She is a good horse, she is a turf jumbie. She quick­ened up re­al­ly well for an im­pres­sive vic­to­ry. She is now five wins from five starts on the turf. That is a won­der­ful per­for­mance.

"I am now look­ing for­ward to my ride on In The Head­lines in the Der­by. She has won the first two clas­sics of the 'Triple Crown' and I will be look­ing to join Ki­mal San­to as the sec­ond ap­pren­tice to win the 'Triple Crown'."