Quality field for Gold Cup

Antigua, St Lucia and Trinidad will try to wrestle away the 2020 Sandy Lane Gold Cup from host nation Barbados when the most prestigious race in the English speaking Caribbean runs off on March 7th.

Owners, trainers and jockeys converged at the Barbados Turf Club this morning for the draw for the 38th running of the Gold Cup which has a purse of $240,000 plus subscriptions totalling $25 000.

St Lucia will have representatives in the race for the first time, courtesy Colonel’s Pride and Run Bayou which ran second and third respectively in the Pitons Cup on December 13th in St Lucia.

Run Bayou a six-year-old gelding and Colonels Pride a five-year-old gelding, are owned by the China Horse Club, which also owned 2018 Triple Crown champion Justify and  2017 Kentucky Oaks winner Abel Tasman, as the Gold Cup continues to attract world-class owners to the race.

Run Bayou is trained by Deon Visser of South Africa will be ridden by James Chan while Colonels Pride is trained by Australian Robbie Hewetson and will have Chen Li in the saddle. Both jockeys are from China.

Antigua will be back for a second time as they will have eight-year-old gelding Burndines, which participated in last year’s race. He is the oldest horse in the race and is trained by Kenny Joseph who is the youngest trainer in the Gold Cup this year at 30 years old.

Joseph has indicated that no jockey has been booked as yet.

Trinidad will be looking for their first Gold Cup victory since 1988 when Call To Account stormed to victory in a record time of 149.4. This time around they will have Trini Aviator, a five-year-old chestnut who won his last start in Trinidad and has a good chance of giving Trinidad’s multiple champion trainer John O’Brien his first win in the race.

Trini Aviator also has no jockey booked as yet.

Last year’s winner, six-year-old mare Celestial Storm will be aiming to become the fourth horse to win the Gold Cup more than once after Sanford Prince, Blast of Storm and Dorsett. She also will be aiming to become the first horse to win the Diamonds International, Coolmore and Gold Cup in succession. She will be ridden by Rasheed Hughes once again.

While there will only be a nine horse field, this year’s Gold Cup is brimming with quality and Sir David Seale will be looking for an eighth title with the imported Renaissance Frolic, a 5-year-old gelding. He won three races from eight starts last year and has won at four different race tracks across the USA, including GulfStream Park and Church Hill Downs.

Renaissance Frolic will be ridden by Rico Walcott who won the 2015 Gold Cup with Saylors Creek.

The rest of the field is made up of Bodie Tap which has not raced since September, 2019. He will be ridden by Rico’s brother Rickey Walcott and has drawn gate 8.

Night Prowler will be ridden by Jalon Samuel who is looking for a record fifth Gold Cup win and Rising Star will be ridden by Chris Husbands the older Brother of Rasheed Hughes.

Post time for the Gold Cup which is race eight on the nine race card is 4:45 pm while the first race will begin at 12:15 p.m.