Orville Clarke, Freelance WriterTHE 2003 'Horse of the Year', A KING IS BORN, again underlined his claim as one of the best native-bred sprinters to grace the Caymanas Park turf when he blew away his four opponents to win the She's On Wheels Trophy graded stakes feature over 1100 metres yesterday.
Ridden as usual by the leading all-time jockey Winston 'Fanna' Griffiths, A KING IS BORN, toting customary top weight of 59kg, duly won the race for the second consecutive year, this time by 4 1/2 lengths from the 6-5 second favourite, the American bred 3-y-o colt CLOCK WORK, to give champion trainer Philip Feanny the second of three winners on the 11-race programme.
A KING IS BORN was outsprinted by the lightly weighed CLOCK WORK under veteran jockey Robert Reid as the five runners galloped past the half mile. However, by the time they galloped towards the home turn, The King had found his best stride and turned for home on the outside of CLOCK WORK. He disposed of him in a flash and only had to be shown the fanning right-hand stick by 'Fanna' Griffiths to win impressively in the fairly good time of 1:05.2.
The blistering early pace set by CLOCK WORK (22.2, 45.1) eventually took its toll on him and in the end he was beaten for second by his lesser fancied stable-companion FORMALLY GOLD.
Owned by Howard Hamilton (Hamark Farms) and bred by Ken Gooden, A KING IS BORN a 5-y-o chestnut horse by Royal Minister out of the 1990 Derby winner Distinctly Native chalked up win No. 19 in his illustrious career from only 24 starts.
In addition to A KING IS BORN, Feanny posted his unbeaten two-year-old colt MINISTER ON FIRE (1-1 favourite) under champion jockey Trevor Simpson to win the Terremoto Trophy secondary feature over the round five course in fine style and his vastly improved three-year-old colt KINGSTONIAN (9-5 favourite) in the overnight allowance race over 1200 metres with apprentice Dal Brown aboard. Owned
by Joseph 'Fudgie' Duany, KINGSTONIAN duly made it four it a row.
Also taking a triple was title chasing jockey Brian Harding. He won aboard the two-year-old
NO GUTS NO GLORY (3-5 favourite) for trainer Gary Subratie in the first race, ESTOY LISTO (3-1) for trainer Anthony Nunes in the seventh and ROSE BUD (9-2) for owner Howard Hamilton and trainer Dwight Chen in the closing race for high claimer.
Harding thus pushed his season's tally to 40 six adrift of leader Simpson who rode one winner in MINISTER ON FIRE.
