O’Brien confident in Wise Guy’s Triple Crown chances

The Trinre-sponsored Derby Stakes and Stewards Cup trophies, which will be on offer on Saturday.   - Joel Bailey
The Trinre-sponsored Derby Stakes and Stewards Cup trophies, which will be on offer on Saturday. - Joel Bailey

TOP LOCAL trainer John O’Brien is confident in Wise Guy’s chances to complete the Triple Crown on Saturday, when the Trinre-sponsored Trinidad Derby Stakes is contested at the Santa Rosa Park, Arima.

Wise Guy prevailed in the Guineas and Midsummer Classic, and the three-year-old gelding is on the brink of becoming the fourth Triple Crown champ since races were centralised at Santa Rosa.

The previous Triple Crown winners at Arima were Carnival Messiah, Top of the Class (both trained by Glenn Mendez) and Momentum (trained by O’Brien).

The draw for positions for the Derby Stakes, as well as the Stewards Cup, took place on Tuesday at the Trinre head office, Port of Spain. Wise Guy, one of five O’Brien-trained horses in the 12-race card, will start from gate four, with Wang Chung in gate three, Bella Riva in gate six, Apache in gate eight and Princess Steffani in gate 11.

Trainer Harold Chadee have four entrants – American Traveller (gate one), Goldon D’Or (gate two), Airforce Won (gate five) and Nuclear Fire (gate ten).

Other runners in this 2,000-metre race, which is open to West Indies-bred three-year-olds and carries a purse of $70,000, are Reprisal (gate seven, trained by Krishna Sahadeo), CP Jet (gate nine, trained by Richard Frederick) and Smooth Sailing (gate 12, trained by Lester Alexis).

O’Brien mentioned at the media conference, “As the races got longer, he ran better. He’ll be very tough going ten furlongs.”

Asked if he thought Wise Guy will be a major contender for the 2020 Triple Crown, O’Brien replied, “Yes, from the time he started to train, you could see that.” He is pleased by the work done by charges during gallops on Sunday. “They all worked Sunday morning and I thought Wise Guy looked really good,” O’Brien said. “Apache (looked) very workmanlike. With regards to the Stewards Cup horses, they all worked very well and I’m very happy with all going into the race. May the best horse win.”

Roger Hadeed, chairman of the Arima Race Club (ARC) marketing committee, pointed out, “Our fans will not be able to attend the race track, but many of them have gotten involved with our MBet system. We thank them for supporting that system and we encourage others to get on board as well.”

Rani Lakhan-Narace, Trinre’s executive chairman, mentioned, “We call on other organisations to support the (racing) industry so it can quickly reboot and thrive again. We hope to continue our own support in some way or the other.” Also speaking at the launch was ARC president Robert Bernard. Here are the runners, jockeys and weights for the seven-race programme....

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"O’Brien confident in Wise Guy’s Triple Crown chances"

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