Former champion and leading rider Shane ‘Canter Man’ Ellis booted home four winners with the highlight being Royal Assault in the $850,000 War Zone Sprint Trophy feature at Caymanas Park yesterday.

Sent off as the 4-5 favourite, the Anthony ‘Baba’ Nunes-trained Royal Assault (Blue Pepsi Lodge – Mayken) got a good break and went straight to the lead, and that was that for the rest of his 11 rivals as the chestnut colt won unchallenged by four lengths in the Restricted Stakes event for native-bred three-year-olds over 1,100 metres.

Action Man (Linton Steadman astride) came on for second position at odds of 22-1 ahead of 10-1 shot Dreamcometrue (Aaron Chatrie up) and Dwayne Star with Dane Nelson on board at 7-1.

Owned by Preffered Racing, Royal Assault covered the distance in a career best 1:05:1 minutes after setting splits of 23:0 and 46:0 seconds.

“I got a flying start and was unmolested on the lead, and once we turned for home comfortably, I knew that we would be hard to beat,” Ellis told the Jamaica Observer.

Ellis’s other winners were Hologram Shadow at 4-1 for trainer Donovan Plummer in the fifth race over 1,600 metres; Perfect Flyer at 8-5 for trainer Dwight Chen in the eighth race over 1,400 metres; and 43-1 long shot Roman Spy, also for Plummer, in the 12th and final event over 1,400 metres.

With those four winners, Ellis (83 winners) opened up a 12-win lead over closest rival Robert Halledeen (71) in the race for the jockeys’ championship. Halledeen failed to secure a mount on yesterday’s programme.

Meanwhile, Phineas, under a brilliant ride from former champion jockey Wesley ‘Callaloo’ Henry, just held on to beat Campesino by a neck in the $845,000 Gladiator Trophy over 1,400 metres.

Edison, under Odean Edwards, came on for third place ahead of Long Running Train in the small field of six runners. The winning time was 1:24:1 minutes.

Long Running Train finished third, but was disqualified for causing interference to Edison in deep stretch.

Racing continues on Wednesday.