The scintillating victory of Early Bird in the 2019 Stewards Cup of Day 36, was a major win for the local breeding industry. This three-year-old son of Gold Market/Rosalinda also established his claims for Horse of the Year in 2019 after a season in which the colt improved steadily throughout the year.
It has long been established that the locally bred horse is a much slower developer than their Jamaican counterpart with the best usually seen off the TT bred animal from their four-year-old season. Early Bird has been a different sort and he indicated his ability from his two-year-old days when dominating his counterparts over distances up to 1300 metres.
The fact that he has been able to maintain and improve on that precocious ability displayed early on, speaks volumes for his quality. The improvement shown by the local breed has been maintained this year with the early two-year-old races being dominated by another locally bred animal, this time the two-year-old filly, Bella Riva. Both Early Bird and Bella Riva were bred at the Poon Tip Stud Farm.
The rise of the locally bred animal is a rare shining light in an otherwise gloomy horizon for the local racing industry. Unfortunately, this is likely to become more common as owners stop investing in the US-bred animals and Jamaican bred animals are purchased for racing in that country. While plans are in place for the USA bred fillies to be allowed to contest the local classics, this is unlikely to attract much interest from owners when one considers that payment of stakes remains anaemic. It is no secret that stakes payments have not been paid to winning connections since March 2019. Whether any owner will be willing to invest in a new stock when there is no sign that the industry has a long future must be highly questionable.
With a very uncertain future, one of the more hopeful behaviours is the payment of subscriptions by owners for upcoming classic events. There is every likelihood that racing will continue through to Boxing Day on December 26th but whether there is racing in 2020 is another thing altogether. Interestingly a few owners and trainers continue to maintain the faith and have signalled this by paying first subscriptions for the New Years Day Sian’s Gold Sprint. Thirteen horses have paid 4th nominations for the St. Anns Stakes, St. James Stakes and Gold Cup on December 26.
Of the 13 in the St. Ann’s, seven have raced to date and six are unraced. The aforementioned Bella Riva is one of the seven that have raced to date and is the only winner among the lot, the unraced six include relatives to Early Bird and Making Headlines, two of the star locally bred three-year-olds of the 2019 season. Of the 13 in the St. James, again seven of these have raced already with two winners among them, the Harold Chadee trained duo of Jamaican bred's, American Traveller and Goldon D’Or. The unraced include a relative of General JN, one of the top creoles of the last two years. With only two juvenile races slated for the period between now and Boxing Day, only two more winners will be unearthed before the 26th. Close attention should be paid to the performance of the unraced nominees to both classics in those two maiden events to identify any challenges to those who have already staked their claims to those titles.
The other feature event on Boxing Day, the Gold Cup will pit seven West Indian bred horses against six North America bred animals. The seven West Indian bred horses include two Trinidad bred horses in Making Headlines and Streaking Far. The significant advantage which three-year-old have in these top-class races, and the extra advantage that a very good locally bred horse will receive means that there is always the strong likelihood that we could see a further boost to the local breed in this event. The locally bred Making Headlines is the one that would most catch the eye in this event, based primarily on the significant improvement seen in the Caribbean Champion Stakes when he was a very close third behind the Jamaican bred Apocalypse and Juice Man. With the latter out of the race, his main three-year-old challenger would be Apocalypse.
Of the older creoles, Bigman in Town is a shadow of his former self, Streaking Far has been well beaten by the three-year-olds in all of her races this year and General JN has performed poorly in his last two races, including the Caribbean Champion Stakes, in the process forfeiting any claim that he had to the Horse of the Year title. The intriguing creole is the 2018 Derby winner Cape Canaveral, who has not raced for the entire 2019 season. If his master trainer, Glenn Mendez can get him back to his best form for the Gold Cup, then that would be some training feat.
Of the North American bred animals, 2018 Gold Cup winner and 2019 Stewards Cup runner-up Nuclear Power stands head and shoulders above the rest. The race would, therefore, appear to lie between the three-year-olds Apocalypse and Making Headlines and the four-year-old imported, Nuclear Power. If Making Headlines can win this event, it would put the icing on the cake for the revival of the local breeding stock. Plenty will be cheering on this colt in the hope of this eventuality.