Walcott, Whitehall excel in Canada

EDMONTON, Alberta – Barbadian jockeys Rico Walcott and Antonio Whitehall have ended in two of the top three places in the standings at the Century Mile racetrack.

To the disappointment of many, the final race day of the season on Sunday was abandoned because of unsafe track conditions after heavy snowfall.

The 29-year-old Walcott, the leading jockey in western Canada over the last decade, led the jockeys’ standings with 68 wins for a winning percentage of 33.33 and led the total earnings table with CAN $616,229.

Walcott was a multiple champion jockey at the now defunct Northlands Park, and this is his first title at the racing oval located next door to the Edmonton International Airport.

The 26-year-old Whitehall finished third with 43 wins – three behind Rigo Sarmiento of Venezuela – but he was second on the total earnings table with CAN $465,100.

He is a contender for the title of Canada’s leading jockey for the year, having bagged 117 wins for 2020.

Whitehall is, however, expected to be overtaken by Justin Stein and Rafael Hernandez, two jockeys based at Woodbine, Canada’s primary racetrack.

It is not clear if Whitehall will ride at any other tracks in Canada for the remainder of the year, but the Century Mile season has now ended.

Woodbine, on the other hand, races four days a week and their meet ends on December 13.

Whitehall was able to ride at two racetracks this year. He was able to achieve this because Assiniboia Downs in the central Canadian city of Winnipeg raced on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays before its season closed in September, and Century Mile raced on Fridays and Sundays.

Meanwhile on the track on Sunday, ace Barbadian jockey Patrick Husbands and long-standing Guyanese jockey Sunny Singh flew the Caribbean flag at Woodbine, with each landing a win.

Husbands, a multiple winner of the jockeys’ title at Canada’s leading racetrack, is sixth in the standings with 65 wins – 57 behind leader Justin Stein – and Singh notched only his 11th win of the season, which draws to a close in just over a month.

Singh got his name into the frame first, when he piloted 5-1 chance Red Frog to a 1 ¼-length win in the CAN $35,500 fourth race, going 1,100 metres on the Polytrack.

The Guyanese rider put Red Frog, a five-year-old, chestnut gelding, into the lead quickly before coming under pressure from the second-place finisher in the final bend and shaking clear at the sixteenth pole to hold on to victory in a time of one minute, 03.86 seconds.

Husbands later drove the 6-1 chance Wicked to a 1 ½-length victory in the CAN $64,300 seventh race over 1,700 metres.

He kept the two-year-old, dark bay filly, before rallying inside on the far turn, shifting out dramatically approaching the quarter pole and making several manoeuvres to get to the line in a time of 1 min, 46.83 secs. (CMC)