TT’s Dos Ramos rides Woodbine double

TORONTO, Canada: Trinidad-born Richard Dos Ramos scored two wins to be top rider on Thursday’s nine-race Woodbine horse racing card. Veteran Dos Ramos won the first and fourth races to lift his season’s tally to 30 wins, while Barbadian Slade Callaghan was also a winner on the programme. In the first race, Dos Ramos steered the 4-1 chance Gemini’s Revenge to a three-length victory over the even-money favourite Running Facts. Gemini’s Revenge, trained by Jamaican Arthur Silvera, covered the five-furlong sprint in one minute 00.95 seconds. The 39-year-old Dos Ramos then produced a fine ride for an upset win aboard the three-year-old gelding Shampel in the Can$62,700 fourth race. Going off at odds of 13-1, Shampel stalked the leaders for most of the ten-furlong event and outran the hot 3-5 favourite Eastern Crown in a stirring stretch duel to score by one length in a time of 2:09.01 seconds.

Callaghan, currently sixth in the Woodbine jockeys’ standings, logged his 63rd win of the season when he guided 3-2 favourite Rodeo Fun to a 2-3/4 length victory in the second race, a Can$63,600 event. Rodeo Fun raced close to the leaders from the start, and — unleashed by Callaghan in the upper-stretch accelerated away from his rivals for a clear win in 1:12.12 seconds. Callaghan is one of four Caribbean jockeys in Woodbine’s top-10 near the end of their 2004 season, the others are Patrick Husbands and Jono Jones, also from Barbados, and Trinidadian Emile Ramsammy. Woodbine’s top-ten jockeys: 1. Todd Kabel 148 wins; 2.  Patrick Husbands      119; 3. James McAleney 99; 4. Jono Jones  81; 5. Emile Ramsammy 68; 6. Slade Callaghan 63; 7. Dino Luciani 59; 8. Steven Bahen 58; 9. Constant Montpellier, David Clark 52. (CMC)