On a day when most favourites failed to justify favouritism, the 5-2 chance Prince Theo defied the trend by winning the $528,000 Oswald “Ossie” Steele Memorial Cup feature by one-half-length at Caymanas Park yesterday.

Well ridden by the leading rider Omar Walker for trainer Gary Subratie, Prince Theo, who after failing to go the earl pace, came charging forward after rounding the final quarter bend for his challenge. And with a determined run brushing the running rails he rallied strongly to be on level terms with the front-runners inside the final third before going on to register his second win of the season.

It was a victory that was not totally unexpected by trainer Subratie. “I was fairly confident about his chances. I am usually pretty decent when it comes to preparing claiming horses and this one is quite a good horse. He ran no race on the last occasion and I could not fathom why. But I took him back to the track to work with him a bit and after that I thought that he was ready to go. As you can see, he ran a time of 1:13.1, which is the best time I think he has done in a long time.”

Walker also showed confidence in his mount’s ability to get the job done. “All I needed to do is to get a clean break, which he did, and all I had to do was to sit and wait until leaving the three-furlong (600 metres) pole after which I asked him to run and he began to close really fast, so all I had to do was to keep him balanced until he hit the wire in front.”

Aquamoto, a 9-2 bet ridden by Dick Cardenas, finished best of the rest after running prominently until Walker produced Prince Theo. Meru, a 3-1 chance ridden by the claiming apprentice Orlando Fosters, who also ran prominently, finished another one-half-length back. Real Vibes Machine, who was never worse than third just before setting down for the final 400 metres stretch run, completed the frame under claiming apprentice Renardo McNaughton at odds of 4-1 in the field of 11. A field of 12 was declared, but Ministerofjustice was a late scratch.

Owned by True Friends, Prince Theo, a six-year-old dark bay colt by Image Maker out of Champion Melody (Pat N Jac) bred by Terence Strachan, was winning for the 10th time from 40 career starts, and earned $288,300 as the winners share.