Jones highlights Caribbean presence on Breeders Cup Day
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CMC
Saturday, October 29, 2005
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ELMONT, New York (CMC) - Two-time Barbados champion jockey Jono Jones headlines the Caribbean attendance at today's Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championship series, the richest horse racing meet on the global calendar.
Jones, champion jockey in Barbados 2000 and 2001, makes his first-ever appearance on Breeders' Cup day when he takes the Canadian entry A Bit O'Gold to the post in the US$4 million Breeders' Cup Classic, the main event on the 10-race programme at the Belmont race track.
Apart from Jones, top British trainer Sir Michael Stoute, who was born in Barbados, and Florida-based Jamaican trainer Ralph Ziadie, will have charges at the meet that carries a record overall purse of US$15.75 million.
In all, there will be 101 total starters and three of the races will have full fields.
A Bit O'Gold finished second in last year's Queen's Plate before taking the final two jewels of the Canadian Triple Crown series - the Prince of Wales and Breeders' Stakes - but is regarded a long-shot for the Classic.
He is showing as a 30-1 bet in the 14-horse field and had an encouraging final workout Thursday morning.
"He galloped 1-1/2 miles and he was very good today," trainer Catherine Day Phillips said.
Ziadie, who races four-year-old colt Silver Wagon, a 3-1 second favourite in the non-Breeders' first race on the programme, the US$250,000 Sport Page Stakes, enters Along the Sea in the US$1 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies event in which Folklore (5-2) is the favourite from the D Wayne Lucas barn.
Sir Michael Stoute, who recently returned home to Barbados for his father's funeral, has top British jockey Michael Kinane riding Favourable Terms (20-1) for him in the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf race in which Jerry Bailey mounts the 5-2 favourite Ouija Board.
If all 101 horses start, it will be highest number of starters since the record 103 when the Breeders' Cup was run at Churchill Downs in 2000.
The only other year there were more than 100 starters was in 1999 when 101 went to the post at Gulfstream Park.
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