Musketoon defied pre-race predictions to win the Restricted Allowance 1V Native-bred four-year-olds and upward (NW3) event on Hall of Fame Race Day which was named in honour of Vin Edwards on Saturday.

Musketoon, a consistent, four-year-old dark bay brown colt by Storm Craft out of the Chief Seattle mare Dancing Mia — bred at Lakeland Farms and owned by Stephan Narinesingh — ran 1,820 metres in a time of 2:00.3 minutes to register his third career win from 31 starts, and he earned $354,900 as the winner’s share.

Not originally earmarked to enter this event, Musketoon worked so well a few days before the event minus his tongue tie and figure 8, that an impressed trainer Anthony Nunes decided to start the four-year-old colt in the event — and he delivered.

Ridden by Wesley Henry, who recently has struck up a becoming partnership with the Nunes stables, Musketoon proved the trainer’s hunch right by moving to win the event in fine style over the 2-1 second favourite Winter Is Coming, partnered by jockey Gary Richards.

In a post-race interview, Nunes was obviously pleased with his charge’s victory and said: “This was a last-minute entry. He was not scheduled to run in this race at all. Reason being, he ran poorly in the two, 9 and 25 yards races before and we thought that he did not like this trip. But on Thursday morning all that negative thinking went out of the window, as he worked so nicely without the tongue tie and the figure 8 that Wesley reported that Musketoon felt extremely good with the equipment removed. So I said to Wesley, ride him how you feel him, and for sure Wesley and Musketoon had something special in mind today and it worked.”