The Barbados Lottery International Jockeys’ Challenge, last held in Barbados in 2020, will be back with a bang on November 30th, Independence Day, with some exciting riders coming out of England going up against local riders.
The International Jockeys’ Challenge will be a four-race series, and the team with the most post points wins.
2016 English champion rider Jim Crowley will head a three-member team, which includes Hector Crouch and the useful Clifford Lee.
Crowley is having very good time in the saddle for four years in a row winning Group 1 races with Eshaada in the British Champion Filly and Mares Stakes in 2021, the Brilliant Baaeed in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes that same year, the Sussex Stakes and Irish Champion Stakes with the same horse.
Crowley won three Group 1 races last year, with a standout victory aboard Hukum fighting off a stubborn West Over in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. Following that race last year, however, he was suspended for 20 days and fined £10,000 for using his whip nine times during the race, three times above the permitted level.
Anmaat gave the skillful 2016 champion rider his only Group 1 win of this year in the British Champion Stakes. Local race fans will be thrilled to see a top international rider grace the Savannah, as he will join fellow British champion riders Frankie Dettori, Kerron Falllon, Seb Sanders, and Jamie Spencer, who have ridden in the Jockey Challenge previously.
Crouch, 28 years old, scored his first classic and Group 1 winner this year in the Irish Oaks, aboard the Ralph Beckett-trained filly You Got To Me. He also picked up handicap and listed races such as the William Hill Handicap at Good Wood aboard Quirat and the Fortune Stakes at Sandown on Skellet. Crouch, a strong finisher, will relish the Garrison’s short home run.
This race day could turn out to be the second biggest after Sandy Lane Gold Cup day, as hundreds of visitors and local race fans alike will see rising star Clifford Lee, co-winner of the Jockey Cup in the Sky Bet Sunday Series earlier this year.
England’s Sky Bet Sunday Series is a four-race contest, with the jockey amassing the most points at each fixture scooping £10,000. Lee won two of the races in the series aboard Ice Max and Liamarty Dreams to tie with Osbourne.
USA-based St Croix native Kevin Krigger, best known for winning the Santa Anita aboard Golden Cents, brings a different flavour and flair to the jockey’s challenge as not many American-born or -based riders have ridden at the Garrison compared to their European rivals.
Krigger is also one of the few African Americans to have ridden in the Kentucky Derby riding in the 2023 running of the race with Golden Cents finishing 17th of 20.
Englishman Jeff Laughton, the man behind the event, said it has been a struggle to get the event back on again after Covid. But he disclosed that a few people have worked hard to ensure it goes ahead this year, even with a reduced number of jockeys, albeit jockeys of real quality and class.
(KL)
