by Magnat
After the holding of the MRC Festival, the official opening of the season will occur next Sunday 16th January commencing at 1.30pm, with a ten race, all-trot race card. This meeting will see the launch of the season’s first competition, the U Bet Championship reserved exclusively for Swedish trotters, with three heats (six horses from each heat qualify for the semi-finals) for each of the Bronze and Silver classes (the other classes enter into action in the Semi-Finals or Final of the championship), then there are also “normal” races for the Copper, Silver and Premier classes and an Amateur trot race for horses normally racing in the old racecourse.
All races in this programme are over the short 2,140m distance, except for the Amateur trot race which is over the sprint 1,640m distance.
The U Bet championship heats pit against each other some of the best of the numerous Swedish trotters based in Malta and will certainly include some keenly fought out contests.
Furthermore we have an interesting Premier class race with fifteen horses being registered to compete, including well-known ones such as Alf Eme, Enjoy Kronos, Lovely Mab, Loustic d’Anjou and others.
No less than nine horses are scheduled to make their debut in Malta during this meeting – the first new horses this year: Lonestar Somolli (DK) in the Silver Class, Apple Tooma (SE), Origo Casino (SE), Tap Dancing (SE) and Uptillbevis (SE) in the U Bet Bronze class heats, and C.J. Blueeyedkissed (SE), Ironbar (SE), Meadow Star (SE) and Money Boy (SE) in the U Bet Silver class heats.
Last meeting
One of the biggest crowds of the season followed the MRC Festival held on the 2nd January. The highlight of the Festival was the MRC Grand Final for trotters which participated in the Prix de Vincennes Final or the President’s Cup Final. This was an exciting race over 2,640m with Swede Arnie Sensation leading a nine horse field for most of the race, until it was attacked by a number of horses, with the win finally going to French trotter Lou Petiot followed by Bello Fratello, Kakisis and In Vitro du Bourg respectively.
The Monte’ race resulted in a win for Premier class trotter Love de Fleur which started at a handicap to lower class horses followed by Liosco Atout, another Premier class trotter, with Don Valentino finishing in third place.
The Class A flat race was won by Mean Mr Mustard which took an early lead and maintained it to the end, being followed at the finish line by Lordswood and Etoile du Pic in that order.
In the Class B flat race, we saw the welcome return of jockey Sarah Borg who had been missing from the race course since suffering a serious injury in an accident during a race nearly two years ago. Ollie Fliptrik, the horse partnered by Ms Borg finished in second place, behind winner Tarruji and ahead of third placed Genievre.
The remaining races included among others a number of races reserved for drivers being horse-owners who do not perform as drivers on a regular basis, a young drivers’ race and a veteran drivers’ race.
During this Festival, MRC chairman Dr Matthew Brincat also conducted a number of presentations for the 2010 best driver, the best apprentice driver, the best jockey, the most consistent trotter, the most consistent thoroughbred and the most consistent horse in the SECF championships.
Other news
Various doping test results were received by the Malta Racing Club. Apart from a number of negative results (well done to the owners and trainers involved), some positive doping results were also received. In the President’s Cup Final, the winner and the runner-up both had a positive doping test result and the same applies for the runner-up in the Coronation Cup Final. One has to see whether these doping test results will be confirmed, in which case the race results would have to be altered accordingly.
We commend the MRC for its commitment to the carrying out of such doping tests and augur that the anti-doping culture would be further enhanced in the Maltese horse-racing community.
Final word
It is satisfying that we shall have an encouraging number of new horses participating in this first formal meeting of the season. Interestingly, according to informal sources, during 2010, we have seen 231 trotters making their debut. This is around the average we had annually in the last seven years. It is not as good as 2006, 2007 and 2008, where the number of new horses exceeded 240, or 2004 when they even reached 250, but is more than those we had in 2005 and 2009. Around 60% were born in France, around 28% in Sweden and the remaining 12% originated in seven other countries, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Italy, the US and the Netherlands. The youngest new horses (two) were five years old and the oldest (only 1) was 13 years old, with the majority of them being nine year olds, ten year olds and eight year olds in that order.
We also saw 21 new thoroughbreds, which is also a good number considering that this discipline is still in the course of development locally. Around 43% came from Ireland and around 19% from France, with the remainder originating in Great Britain, the US, Germany, Italy and Sweden, with the most popular ages being four and five years respectively.
Let’s hope that we will see a good number of new horses even this year, because they are important to ensure the continuous regeneration of racehorses in Malta.
We wish you all an exciting meeting next Sunday.
