Sir Budget leads home in Overnight Allowance sprint
In a display of natural speed, Sir Budget, under the competent Orlando Foster, outsprinted his more fancied rivals to win the top-rated Overnight Allowance contest to highlight the fairly competitive looking, nine-race programme at Caymanas Park yesterday.
Shooting from post position nine in the field of 11 runners, the 7-1 betting option Sir Budget was hooked up on the front end with Dreamliner (Omar Walker astride) and favourite Talented Tony K (Dane Nelson up) for the first two-and-a-half furlongs of the 1,000-metre straight event.
When Foster asked the four-year-old chestnut colt to really run passing the dummy rails, Sir Budget answered to the call and began to accelerate and powered home for a very convincing three-length victory, effortlessly in the end of the quick sprint.
Gary Glitter (Rayan Wilson aboard), who went off at 7-2, came from a far way to snatch second place in a three-way tussle to the wire over Well Blessed (Arthur Budhu up) at 99-1 and Silver Cloud (Paul Francis in the irons) at 36-1, in third and fourth, respectively.
Bred, owned and trained by Michael Beecham, Sir Budget (Burning Marque – Victreebel), who was winning his third race for the season and fifth overall, ran the distance in a fairly good 59.0 seconds, with splits of 22.3 and 45.1 seconds.
Earlier on the programme, the Ryan Darby-trained Blue Pepsi Links swept past rivals in deep stretch to win the Joseph Armond Memorial Trophy feature by four lengths.
Ridden by in-form apprentice Bebeto Harvey, Blue Pepsi Links won ahead of Bounce (Ruja Lahoe aboard) andHey Champ, the mount of Javaniel Patterson. The final time for the 1,820-metre event was 1:58.2 minutes. The win placed Harvey (61 wins) six winners behind Omar Walker (67 wins) in the race for the jockeys’ championship. Walker was winless from his three mounts.
Creating another upset on the day was Nafeesa (Oneil Mullings up), who got home by one-half length at 40-1 from the fast-finishing Tracking Daniel, under Dane Nelson, in the ninth and final event over 1,300 metres.
Racing continues on Saturday.
