BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC:
PROLIFIC REGIONAL racehorse owner Elias Haloute secured three wins at the Garrison Savannah in Barbados on Saturday.
Haloute's Jamaica-bred colt Privy Council won the feature Diamonds International Challenge Stakes for two-year-old colts and geldings and his Mystic Charmer and Freshup Lady also won on the 10-race programme.
Canada-based Rickey Walcott, who was runner-up at the 2002 Stampede Park and Northlands Park meets in Alberta was top rider with four winners, but Jamaican Ricardo Hibbert stayed on course for the championship title in spite of a winless day.
PRIVY COUNCIL
Privy Council, by Crucial Trial out of Phincolacka, came from off the pace under Walcott to win the Diamonds International by 1-1/2 lengths over Midnight Dancer, covering the 1,100-metre sprint in one minute 07 and 1/5th of a second.
Walcott also rode Haloute's other winners -- Mystic Charmer, bred in Jamaica by Al's River Cat out of Traditional, scoring by a neck in the fourth race, and the Trinidad-bred Freshup Lady (Freshly Squeezed-Dance Little Lady) capturing the 10th by one length.
Another Trinidad-bred horse won on the programme when Dunsborough, by Freshly Squeezed out of Touloume, under jockey Paul Leacock, scored by 3-3/4 lengths in the ninth for owner Wilfred Acham.
Jamar Maughn, the only threat to Hibbert landing the title, won the third race aboard Sun Dancer, for his 20th win of the season.
Hibbert has 24 wins, and with only one race-day - Boxing Day -- remaining in the year, is well placed to capture the championship title and become the second non-Barbadian in four years - after Trinidad's 1999 champion Dale Whittaker -- to take the title.
