A total of 23 declarations were accepted for the annual renewal of the Grooms’ Association Trophy over 1000- metres straight, resulting in this featured event of the 11-race promotion presented in two divisions with 11 and 12 starters in the first and second, respectively.

The day had a particularly pleasing aspect. Once again, Fabian White, a man of sartorial flamboyance, as evidenced by the outrageous colour pattern on his jacket, and head of the organisation, ensured that it was another occasion to highlight the achievements of many of these long-serving veterans. Various sponsors, including the promoting company, made contributions of both cash and kind to enhance appreciation of the indispensable dedication of this cohort of equine caregivers.

Apprentice Youville Pinnock enjoyed his best day in the saddle of a career that had its genesis on December 7, 2019 by moving his career to 56 wins with a four-timer, including piloting the winners of both divisions of the feature.

Patrick Lynch saddled Ring Charmer (9/5) to win Division One for Pinnock’s second, while Richard Azan’s Cruella (5/2) came home half a length clear in Division Two — the tenth race.

In similar fashion to Cruella, the Rowan Mathie-conditioned Buff Bay (3-5) got the lead close to home to score by a game half a length in the nightcap contested over 1,400 metres.

Having won the seventh event aboard Everald Francis’s Adoring Texas (1-5), Pinnock had his sequence interrupted by the intervention of the Robert Halledeen-ridden Curlin’s Affair (3-5), trained by current and three-time champion Anthony Nunes for the second-generation conditioner to chalk up career success number 1,200 in winning the 1,200-metre eighth event.

However, half an hour later the young hot-to-trot reinsman Pinnock was back on track to win the last three races, consecutively.

Based on the composition of races it was anticipated that the majority would be won by well-fancied horses and, eventually, two winners at 5-2 each proved to be the best odds returned on the card.

The opening event was won by Princess Alani (6-5), ridden by Omar Walker and schooled by Ray Phillips, to deliver on the promise she demonstrated in two of her last three performances as a juvenile. The filly made the frame in races with the likes of 2022 Classic aspirants Tekapunt, Slammer, and Deezi and has now delivered the first of more likely successes in the future.

Race two was won by Sheer Beauty (5-2), ridden by 2019 titlist Christopher Mamdeen for veteran conditioner Edward Hamilton, and the third, a gallop of 1300 metres, was secured by Special Counsel (8-5), with leading rider Dane Dawkins doing the honours for trainer Fitzgerald Richards.

Promising maiden three-year-old filly Lacrimae (2-5), ridden by Oniel Mullings and trained by Philip Feanny, confirmed that fact, scoring by over seven lengths at odds of 2-5 in race four, run across 1100 metres.

Winner of the 1000-metre straight fifth event Chrisanli (2/5) ridden by Dane Nelson continues the good strike rate of trainer Dennis Pryce whose nine winners this year came from only 29 starters.

Interestingly, trainer Shaun Williams, who presented sixth race winner Chief of State (4-5) over a distance of 700 metres with Ruja Lahoe astride, has won three races from six starts with this consistent horse in front in three of its last four races.

The Training Feat Award is presented to Everald Francis for the requisite patience to persevere with five-year-old mare Adoring Texas, who made her belated first racecourse appearance in December and was disqualified from first on her second attempt. Now three months later, in her third start, ‘texas’ wins by seven and a half lengths from well off the pace, although striking the lead inside the last 50 metres, for the Best Winning Gallop. Pinnock gets the Jockeyship Award for the variety of his victories, with three — namely Adoring Texas, Cruella, and Buff Bay — from well off the early pace and Ring Charmer from in front.