First Citizens $250,000 ‘New Year’s Day at the Races’

FEMALE Canadian jockey Julio Brimo will be riding at the $250,000 First Citizens Bank-sponsored New Year’s Day 10-race programme. And together with Trinidad-born Richard dos Ramos, will carry the Canadian flag in the First Citizens Jockey Championship. Seven-time TT champion Brian Harding who only on Tuesday wrapped up the Jamaica jockeys title will be returning home to battle new national king Venezuelan Wilmer Galviz and runner-up and champion apprentice rider Joshua Stephen in the series, one of the features of the First Citizens “New Year’s Day at the Races,” when the 2006 Arima Race Club season gallops off at Santa Rosa Park, Arima on Tuesday. There will be six proposed “teams” in the jockeys fray — Brian Harding and Raymond Ganpath (foreign TT); Joshua Stephen and Ricky Jadoo (local TT); Panamanian-born Nobel Abrego and Venezuela’s Wilmer Galviz (South America); Dane Nelson and O’Neil Mullings (Jamaica); Patrick Husbands and Jonathan “Jono” Jones (Barbados); Richard Dos Ramos and Julia Brimo (Canada).

The races which will determine the championship are Race 3 — First Citizens Energy Fund Trophy for West Indies-bred three-year-old Maidens over 1200 metres; Race 5 — First Citizens Neo Trophy Optional Claiming $14,000 over 1200 metres and Race 6 — First Citizens Caribbean Turf Championship Starter Allowance over 1350 metres. With Galviz, who edged Stephen by one winner — 48-47 to capture the local jockeys title on Tuesday last, Husbands, Jadoo and Abrego, just back from a short vacation, battle lines will surely be drawn. Points will be given to the jockeys finishing in the first six places — First — 12 points; Second — 7; Third — 5; Fourth — 3; Fifth — 2; Sixth — one. In the event of a horse being scratched, the jockeys will get two points.

The winning jockey team will collect $3,000; runners-up $2,000; third $1,500; fourth $1,300; fifth $1,200 and sixth $1,000. Earlier, FCB Communications Specialist Michael Lopez addressing a media conference at the Arima Race Club at Santa Rosa said, “First Citizens has made a considerable investment in the horse racing industry because we believe in the valuable contribution that this sport has made to Trinidad and Tobago.” He also indicated that the journalist with the best published news report will get $5,000. “As ‘Bank of the Year 2005’ and custodians of the First Citizens Sports Foundation, First Citizens understands the value of investing in the nation’s sport, and support for the horse racing industry will provide them with a secure financial framework that will enable them to bring to fruition the major capital development goals they foresee in the near future,” Lopez added. Post positions were also drawn for the three “big races” of the First Citizens Bank gala.