Final leg of Triple Crown delayed

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The Antigua Turf Club (ATC) has been forced to postpone its planned meet for the Whit weekend and, by extension, the third and final stage of its Antigua Triple Crown Series, the Governor General’s Cup. President Neil Cochrane said the body opted to push the meet back by a week and will now host the event on 16th June.

This, he added, is to avoid a clash with Caribana activities planned for Barbuda on the weekend of 9th June. “Normally we wouldn’t race on a Whit weekend but, when we scheduled, Whit was not really a consideration or contemplation [in Barbuda]; but now that they are having Whit, it kind of coincides with the issue of us having the races and we get a pretty strong support out of Barbuda every race day,” he said.

“Every person counts for us, because we have to meet the bottom line and we have to maintain that Barbuda support and the least amount of distractions we can have when putting on the race, it is better for us,” he added. A number of top horses that include Mulatto, Massacre and Syrian Soca are all carded to run in the Governor General’s Cup.

The delay, Cochrane said, could assist in further preparing the horses. “Some horses may need a little more time like Massacre and others didn’t work out for a few weeks after the race. Massacre and a whole set of horses they train down there hadn’t trained so they would have already been at a disadvantage if they were coming into the races next weekend; so they are very happy to get that extra weekend which would actually make them feel comfortable,” he said.

The first leg of the Triple Crown Series, the Antigua Black Pineapple Stakes, was captured by Syrian Soca while Mulatto and Massacre ended in a dead heat in the second leg, the Sir Cuthwin Lake Super Sprint.

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