by Magnat

Two race meetings will be held at the Marsa racetrack at the end of this week; a meeting this Friday (30th September) and another on Sunday (2nd October).

Each meeting will feature 9 races, all of which are trot races on a 2,140m distance. Friday’s meeting starts at 7pm whilst Sunday’s will commence at 2pm.

The highlight of the weekend is the start of the Autumn Championship sponsored by Cassar Fuels, which is the successor to last year’s championship sponsored by Dragonara.

Four keenly awaited heats will be held, two in each meeting. These will feature 47 of the best trotters on the Island, originating in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway and Sweden. The first five from every heat qualify for the semi-finals, which will be held in a couple of weeks’ time.

Apart from a number of already popular trotters, six newcomers are scheduled to make their debut in these heats, i.e. Bonus Kall (SE), Dialect Af Prinfo (SE), Joker C.N. (DK), Nabab des Corvees (FR), Noble d’Ete (FR) and Norman d’Avril (FR). These are all horses whose quality is worthy of the Premier class.

As an example, Joker C.N. is registered with the highest number of points for newcomers. It is a ten year old trotter with foreign winnings of NOK2,368,862 a best time of 1’11’9 per kilometre on a 2,100m distance, and having collected various interesting wins and places overseas. The youngest is seven year old Bonus Kall having winnings of SEK948,700, a best time of 1’12’7 per kilometre on a 1,640m distance and having won 9 times and various places overseas.

The other races also promise some excellent entertainment. We have three Gold class races featuring horses with a variety of characteristics. Some, such as Lucky Fan, Lys de l’Oasis and others have been in the Premier class in the past, others, such as Niky du Donjon, Nono d’Echal and others, are close to promotion to that class.

We also have horses such as Lime Casted, Hulot and others which are coming from good wins, as well as newcomer Nagano Phedo (FR).

The other races are three for the Copper class, four for the Bronze class with another four being reserved for Silver class horses. In the latter, there are two registered newcomers, i.e. New Grove Jeton (FI) and Prince Regent (US). (For precision’s sake, last week, Running Rose (FI) made its debut in the Gold class rather than the Silver class, due to a correction in the number of its classification points.)

So, now, after an interesting opening of the second part of the season, we all look forward to a keenly contested Cassar Fuels Autumn Championship. Good luck to all participants.

Last meetings

The last two meetings were dedicated to sprint races over a 1,640m distance (in the case of trotters) and 1,250m (for thoroughbreds).

As usual, the key races were those reserved for Premier class trotters. In Friday’s meeting, we saw Carnegie Hall taking its second seasonal win when it led practically throughout the race and went on to win in one of the season’s best times of 1’14’2 per kilometre, in front of Niro and Enjoy Kronos.

Sunday’s race was dominated by Skip Dimanche which also took an early lead and maintained it to the end, warding off Solid Lady Spin’s challenge, particularly in the final straight.

Among last week’s best times we also find the 1’14’8 per kilometre registered by newcomer Oscarina in the Gold class, with an increase in pace in the last lap which led it to win comfortably from Kejser Flamingo and Wim, another newcomer.

We also witnessed a number of close finishes. One of these was the Gold class race won by Lys des Etroits (its third seasonal win) by just a head from Nobel Pasmarick, in another good time of 1’14’9 per kilometre.

The other Gold class race resulted in Quick Cape’s first seasonal win after an absence of seven months from the racetrack.

The Class A Flat race was dominated by newcomer Fyelehk which led from start to finish, suffering no serious challenges until the end and winning by a large margin. Friarscourt was the runner-up.

Newcomers – some statistics

With just one third of the season remaining, if the trotters registered to make their debut this weekend actually do so, the number of newcomers locally this year will exceed 200 as at the beginning of October. An encouraging number when one considers that the number of newcomers for the whole of last year was 231, 214 in 2009 and 242 in 2008.

Until the last meeting, 193 trotters made their debut. The majority are French (107 - around 55.4%), followed by 65 Swedes (around 33.7% - the number of Swedish newcomers this year has already exceeded that for the whole of last year), 7 each from Denmark and Germany (around 3.6% for each country), with the remaining 7 horses coming from Finland, Netherlands, Norway and the USA.

So, eight countries have provided all our trot newcomers. All except the USA are European countries and even the few American horses were racing in Scandinavia prior to coming to Malta.

The most typical age for trot newcomers was 9 years old with no less than 33.7%, followed by 10 year olds (25.9%) and 8 and 11 year olds (each having around 12.4%). The remaining newcomers have ages varying between 4 and 13 years.

Newcomers’ most popular class is the Silver one (around 35.2%), followed by the Gold class (around 31.1%) and the Premier class (around 25.9%), with the others split among the remaining classes.

So far, we also had 18 new thoroughbreds – 21 in total for the whole 2010. Irish horses constituted the largest number (38.9%), followed by France, Great Britain and the USA (around 16.7% each) and Italy (around 11.1%).

The most popular age was 5 years (33.3%), followed by 3 and 6 year olds (22.2% each), with the other thoroughbreds having ages of between 4 and 8 years.

Newcomers are the bloodline of Maltese horse-racing increasing competition and variety. May we see more quality horses joining the local equine community in the coming months.

We wish you all two exciting meetings this weekend.