TORONTO – Barbadian Patrick Husbands continued his stellar 2014 Woodbine season when he captured the CAN$175 800 Grade III Ontario Derby Stakes with 10-1 chance Florida Won and the $171 750 La Lorgnette Stakes with favourite Sweater Weather among four wins here Sunday.
Husbands paired with Florida Won to beat the three-year-olds over a mile and eighth, winning by 1-1/2 lengths in a time of one minute, 50.80 seconds.
Husbands said he was expecting a big outing from the colt, which was making his first start on the Woodbine main track.
“I breezed him last week [on the Polytrack] and he breezed like a winner,” Husbands noted. “Today [Sunday], I rode him with confidence. I wasn’t worried about the horses in front of him, I knew what type of horse I was sitting on. I waited until Luis (Contreras on Ami’s Holiday) went and I had plenty of horse.”
Earlier on the card, he had combined with Sweater Weather in the La Lorgnette to win by 1-1/2 lengths, covering the mile and sixteenth trip in 1:43.70 minutes.
“She broke sharp, I took her out of the race and she relaxed. I made sure I spotted them six or seven lengths. Last time, I spotted them four lengths and had no turn of foot. Today [Sunday) she gave me all the turn of foot I wanted.”
Husbands also found the winner’s enclosure in race one with favourite Field of Coverage going a mile and 70 yards and again in race four with 4-1 bet Angel With Class, over a mile and sixteenth.
With the successes, Husbands took his added money tally to a season-leading 20 and propelled his earnings to $6.9 million.
He also soared five clear in the jockeys championship on 118 wins, with three-time defending champion Luis Contreras on 113.
The four-timer comes ahead of Husbands’ participation in the 84th running of the Trinidad Derby on Republic Day, tomorrow at Santa Rosa Park in Arima.
The Woodbine seven-time Sovereign Award winner has been booked to ride Momentum, which will be seeking the Triple Crown title in the T&T $500 000 National Gas Company-sponsored event over 2 000 metres.
Other “foreign” jockeys coming to ride in the blue riband event are Ramsey Zimmerman from Florida, Jamaicans Dane Nelson, Shane Ellis and the Barbadian duo Rickey Walcott and Jalon Samuel.
This year’s Derby will have a Caribbean flavour, with horses from Jamaica, Barbados and the host country involved.
Walcott will be in the saddle of the Barbados Derby winner Voldemort, which will be racing on a dirt track for the first time in an anti-clockwise direction. (CMC/EZS)
