Ramsammy, Husbands win at Woodbine

TORONTO, Canada: Top Caribbean jockeys Patrick Husbands and Emile Ramsammy secured victories as the 2005 Woodbine horse racing season began on Saturday. Ramsammy scored an upset win in the fourth aboard the 15-1 chance Princess Tish, and Husbands kicked off the season with a fine come-from-behind win in the first race aboard the four-year-old filly Maryfield. But the two fell short in the featured Jacques Cartier Stakes in which champion jockey Todd Kabel resumed the dominance he showed in Stakes races last year, with a thrilling win aboard Ministers Wild Cat (5-1) in the six-furlong sprint. In the first race, Husbands used the 2-1 second favourite Maryfield to stalk the leaders and rallied —three wide — down the stretch to win the (Can)$63,600 five-furlong sprint by one length, covering the trip in 59.71 seconds.

“The track is 110 percent,” said Husbands, a four-time Sovereign Award winner, who won 136 races to finish second to Kabel in last year’s standings.  “I’m happy to be back here and I’m looking forward to a good year,” he added.  The 31-year-old Husbands, who will be inducted into the Brampton Sports Hall of Fame in June, has 1,225 career wins at Woodbine. Ramsammy, Woodbine’s champion jockey in 1996 and 1997, also got his win coming from behind. He positioned Princess Tish close to the front runners and roused the four-year-old filly for a winning run down the stretch, fighting off challenges from West End Lady (24-1), Shades of light (6-1) and the favourite Thedreamcontinues (3-1) in deep stretch to win by a length in one minute 00.03 seconds. Barbadian jockey Slade Callaghan lost the Can$140,475 Jacques Cartier by a nose as Kabel, who equalled the late Avelino Gomez’s mark of most stakes wins by a jockey in one season (36) on the final day of the 2004 campaign, began his assault on the record.

“It’s a nice way to open the season,” said Kabel.  In a brisk opening quarter-mile, the four-time Sovereign Award winner as Canada’s champion rider settled Ministers Wild Cat in third behind pace-setting long-shot Gemini Dream (77-1) and reigning champion Chris’s Bad Boy, the 4-5 favourite with Barbadian Jono Jones riding. Gemini Dream and Chris’s Bad Boy faded in the home stretch leaving the on-rushing Judiths Wild Rush under Callaghan, and Ministers Wild Cat to engage in a stirring duel to the finish. Kabel emerged victorious by a nose in a six-furlong running time of 1.09.67 and admitted after the race he thought he might have lost the tight finish to Callaghan. “I thought the other horse (Judiths Wild Rush) had me. He had momentum on me. My horse was getting tired, but he was digging in hard,” Kabel said. (CMC)