Favourites force meagre Reggae 6 payout

A HAT-TRICK of short-priced favourites - GOOD CONSCIENCE (6-5), SIR JOHN (1-2), and BOWMORE (4-5) - dominated Saturday’s Reggae 6, resulting in a meagre $4,498 payout to winning tickets. The longest shot was PAPA GRAY, who won the sixth event at odds of 4-1. 

ROUND THE TWIST opened the Reggae 6 at odds of 2-1, one of three winners for champion jockey Raddesh Roman, who returned to land the third with SIR JOHN and closed the 10-race card astride American DIGITAL ONE for Gary Subratie. 

DIGITAL ONE made all at odds of 7-2, humbling DaCosta’s 1-2 favourite and fellow United States-bred DOTHRAKI. 

This weekend’s Saturday-Sunday meet opens with the Reggae 6 single-winner bonus at $9.8 million, closing June’s month of racing ahead of St Leger weekend, which kick-starts July. 

Richard Azan’s St Leger hopeful, DARWIN, was an impressive winner going two turns in the Mr Lover Lover Trophy at nine furlongs and 25 yards, after attacking leader JO BOXER three furlongs out. 

FAST-TIME WIN 

DARWIN’s fast-time win turned heads, stopping the clock at 1:55.2, but run on a track playing fast for weeks. The likes of four-year-old GOOD CONSCIENCE, who started the day as a non-winner of three races, won the second event at a mile in a quick 1:41.1. 

The battle for Mouttet Mile and Bruceontheloose Sprint points continued in the Viceroy Trophy in which Anthony Nunes’ SIR DON rallied against the rail yesterday to outbattle fellow American and stablemate OF A REVOLUTION at five and a half furlongs. 

A third Nunes runner, NEO STAR, placed third at long odds of 29-1, subjecting 1-5 favourite PACK PLAYS to fourth. PACK PLAYS struggled to show his usual blazing speed under joint topweight 126lb. 

Expected to maximise his cruising speed against OF A REVOLUTION, who he had beaten by two and a quarter lengths going six and a half furlongs in January, PACK PLAYS was instead taken out of his comfort zone by the seven-year-old, who had won last December’s Bruceontheloose Sprint when making his local debut on Mouttet Mile Day. 

Chasing not being his forte, PACK PLAYS reluctantly raced second into the lane while SIR DON crept closer along the rail under Omar Walker. Burly OF A REVOLUTION kicked away from PACK PLAYS and his stablemate, WALL STREET TRADER, who had loomed four-wide at the top of the straight, but could not escape rail-running SIR DON. 

Pointing a half-furlong out, SIR DON, a strong winner at six and a half furlongs in April’s Saint Cecelia Cup, pulled off to win by a length and a quarter ahead OF A REVOLUTION. 

Nunes, who started the day trailing champion trainer Jason DaCosta by approximately $8 million in stakes earned, had, earlier, won the fourth and seventh events with American BOWMORE and NEBUCHADNEZZAR, respectively.