‘Lime’ with Carib, rugby men at Santa Rosa

CARIB BREWERY have successfully married horseracing with rugby. And they will put on another Carib Rugby and Racing Friday Lime together with the Trinidad Enthusiasts Rugby Football Club at Santa Rosa Park, Arima, on Friday. The Friday Lime racing, was brought forward from Saturday to avoid a clash of sports, and will be graced by approximately 100 rugby men from 11 teams coming to challenge defending champions Border Reivers of Scotland in the Carib Beer International Rugby Sevens Tournament. Carib’s Sponsorship and events manager Colin Murray at a news conference at Carib’s Hospitality Suite, Champs Fleurs, said the Friday Lime has been very successful in the past, fused with cricket, and powerboat racing.

Arima Race Club president Gerard Ferreira indicated his club’s association with Carib Brewery has been very successful, and said since the beer firm came aboard, the annual Stud Farm Association Yearling Sales had taken off. He said the sale on Sunday raked in a whopping $3.1 million, “due to sponsors like Carib.” Ferreira said instead of a nine-race programme on Friday, the ARC through racing secretary is planning to merge one race to have eight so racing could start at 1 pm. He said he found starting at 12.35 pm with a nine-race programme poses some problems with tellers, having to leave work to get to the track on Fridays, along with darkness coming on quickly at this time of the year. Ferreira took the opportunity to let on that the ARC are up-to-date with their payments of stake money to owners, trainers and grooms.

Enthusiasts skipper Ronald Boyack pointed out that 12 teams will be coming for the seven-a-side series, apart from the champions, last year’s finalists Atlantis (USA), Aesculapians (UK), British Virgin Islands, Turks & Caicos Islands, Good Luck (Marti-nique), Bruc (Guadeloupe), Pirates and Sharks (St Vincent), Crum (Venezuela), Guyana, and a West Indies development team. He said since the fusion of rugby and horseracing, the Very Serious Syndicate, a group of 68 men was formed and they have owned several horses including Politics, Squee Zintru, Balthazar, Lovely Pearl and Storming Wind. And the syndicate recently  acquired Ballybunion, who along with Storming Wind will race on the Friday Lime programme. Boyack, a grand son of the late Union Park Turf Club president Aubrey Boyack, said all races at the Friday Lime will be named after teams contesting the rugby sevens tournament.