Lack of horses a threat to racing in Trinidad

A senior horse racing official has bemoaned that the lack of horses in the country will mean a reduction of race days in the New Year at the Santa Rosa Park racetrack.

Robert Bernard, president of the Arima Race Club, which manages the track, said since the start of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic almost three years ago, the stocks of horses in the island had depleted to a critical state, and it will take time to recover.

“Our problem right now is a lack of racing stock,” he told the Trinidad Newsday newspaper. “We need more horses. For the first quarter of the year, we will probably have racing just once a month.

“Once things settle down, we will be looking to get some more horses into the racing stock. It does not make sense having races more than once a month right now (because) we just don’t have the horses to allow us to do that.

“That is the biggest challenge we have right now, of course with all the other challenges we facing, financial and so on… It is an uphill task. It is not going to be resolved immediately.”

Bernard said there may be a need to import horses because many stables in the country closed during the pandemic, so there are now fewer horses bred locally.

“We are going into next year with optimism,” he said. “We have some plans. We have a business plan we are going with to the Government early next year.”

Santa Rosa, however, was able to stage its usual Boxing Day race card on which Crown Prince held off a gutsy challenge from Just Exhale in the final 200 metres to win the US$15 000 featured Edmund de Freitas Gold Cup on the final day of racing season for the year. (CMC)