By Magnat

Two race-meetings will be held over the next few days at the Marsa race track. The first is scheduled for next Sunday and the following for Monday next week, a public holiday, being Republic Day. Both meetings commence at 1.30pm. Sunday’s meeting will comprise nine races whilst Monday’s will have eight races on the card.

The Chukkas Coronation Cup for thoroughbreds over a short 1,250m distance will occupy centre-stage in Sunday’s meeting. Eight flat racing protagonists will take part, including horses coming from some excellent recent performances such as Uncle Bertie which won both its last two races, Mr Roxy Music, Lordswood and No Telling which won once and placed twice in their last three outings.

The rest of Sunday’s programme consists of “normal” trot races, two Copper class races, three Bronze class ones, one Silver class race, one Gold class race and another reserved for Premier class horses. All these races will be over a short 2,140m distance. The Premier class race includes a full field of sixteen horses originating in no less than five countries, including a number of popular ones such as Kain Poifond, Play on Me and Think Yatzee. The Gold class race includes a number of horses who until recently were racing in the Premier class and have the opportunity of achieving promotion to that class, such as Kejser Flamingo, Loulou des Vallees, Moutier, Le Major and others.

The key race in Monday’s all-trot programme over a 2,140m distance will be the President’s Cup final where ten of Malta’s leading trotters will battle it out for this prestigious trophy. These involve seven Swedish horses, Alf Eme, Arnie Sensation, Bello Fratello, Carnegie Hall, Isolated, Lucas Ness, and Shamin, French trotters Melino du Rib and Niarpan and Italian Enjoy Kronos. It is a hard task to predict the outcome of this race, given the quality of the participants. The two Gold class races in Monday’s programme also include a number of interesting horses coming from recent positive performances, such as Black Guy, Livi Cantona, Joker Pitstop, Chef F.C., Korentin, Big Hit and others.
The other races are one Copper class race, two Bronze class races and two Silver class races in the first one of which we will see the only newcomer scheduled to compete in these two programmes, i.e. the German Geronimos Cadillac.

In last Sunday’s meeting, we saw ten interesting races over the sprint 1,640m distance. The leading two Gold Class races were won by outsider Korentin, which had been missing for some time but won in the meeting’s joint best time of 1’14’8 per kilometre and favourite Lord of Rush at its third win this season. The other best time of 1’14’8 per kilometre was registered by Big Hit, its fourth win this season, winning promotion to the Gold class after beating a strong challenge from second placed Black Guy which was also promoted to that class. We also saw the third seasonal win for Chilly Beast (promoted to the Silver Class) and Bankir Zon.

In the 8th December programme, the ten race card was entirely dedicated to the semi-finals of the SECF championships for each class of trotters. In the Prix de Vincennes (Premier class) semi-finals, we saw two extremely fought-out races between horses of the highest calibre. Ten year old Mont Cenis Honey registered its third win from as many races in Malta from the other qualifiers James de l’Iton, Lou Petiot, Land Havaroche and Kamis de l’Eveche. In the second semi-final, eleven year old mare Lady de Vindecy had a hard fight to ward off Tazza l-Kbira champion In Vitro du Bourg which finished second and the other qualifiers, i.e. Lucky Marceaux, Kakisis and Madis Boy.

Even the championships respectively reserved for the Gold, Silver, Bronze and Copper classes provided ten finalists for each championship. The programme’s best time over the 2,640m distance was registered in the second Prix de Cabourg (Silver class) semi-final won by Muflier des Fleurs in a time of 1’16’6 per kilometre.

Kendo du Chene won its fifth seasonal win in the Prix de Caen, whilst no less than three horses won their fourth seasonal win, i.e. Mousko Royal in the Prix de Cagnes Sur Mer (Bronze class), Neo de Mira in the Prix de Cabourg (Silver class) and Kiflosak Cordiere in the Prix d’Enghien (Gold class). On the other hand Lucky Fan (Prix d’Enghien) registered its first win in Malta coming in strongly in the last part of the race.

The last few words for today concern some news items. First of all well done to the drivers who represented Malta and won the Mediterranean Horse Racing Union (MHRU) drivers’ championship who were deservedly honoured as a team by the Malta Olympic Committee (MOC) with a prestigious Gold Award at the annual MOC awards ceremony.

In the final leg of the MHRU championship for jockeys, Michael Sultana was not lucky in the draw for the horse he would be partnering and finished sixth in the flat race held in Siracusa, Sicily. Malta finished a prestigious second in the final classification for this championship, which is also a great achievement for our hard-working jockeys, when competing against opponents from bigger nations.

On Saturday 11th December, Charles Camilleri, one of our leading drivers, will represent Malta in the Prix des Rencontres Internationales du Trotteur Francais, involving talented drivers representing 14 countries. Charles has not been lucky in the draw for the number behind the autostart and in the horse he will be partnering, with a difficult race being in the offing. However we are sure that again our representative will do his utmost to achieve the best possible performance and to set an example of sportsmanship.

Unfortunately, finally, we note with disappointment that from among the doping tests received at the end of last week, a few have yielded a positive result. We augur a cleaner racing culture and that future doping tests would yield negative results.

We wish you all another two pleasant meetings in the next few days.