Montage shows scenes of celebration when Jermaine Bridgmohan lands his first winner, Shimmering Crystal, for Jamaican trainer Kirk Ziadie, at Calder Race Course. Both Jamaicans, who hug each other in the centre pic, accounted for the respective jockeys' and trainers' title double at the Florida track. - Contributed by Jim Lake (Calder Race Course)
MIAMI, Florida (CMC):
Top apprentice jockey Jermaine Bridgmohan and trainer Kirk Ziadie completed a remarkable Jamaican championship double as the Tropical-at-Calder meet ended on Tuesday afternoon.
Bridgmohan, an 18-year-old riding marvel, scored three wins on the season-ending 12-race card to claim the jockeys' title with a record 110 victories, and Ziadie scored two wins to hold off defending champion Bill White for the trainers' title.
White scored three victories but Ziadie's double gave him a season's tally of 25 wins, edging White by one in a tense finish to the trainers' championship.
In only his first year of race-riding, Bridgmohan smashed the previous Tropical-at-Calder meet record of 84 by Panamanian Cornelio Velasquez amidst an astounding strike rate during December.
Tight battle
He had started last month locked in a tight battle with the experienced Manoel Cruz for the crown but accelerated in a mid-December streak that included 21 wins in just seven race days.
Cruz gave up the challenge and the Spanish Town native sped to a remarkable 49 victories in the last 21 days of the meet.
Ziadie, whose father Ralph is a multiple champion trainer at Calder, had scored one victory on Monday to start Tuesday's final day two ahead of White, who threatened with six starts on the final day to Ziadie's two.
White made a bold championship bid with his triple but Ziadie struck 100 per cent success with his two starts to claim his first Calder title, ending the season with a better than 50 per cent win rate.
Bridgmohan, enjoying one of the best starts to a riding career ever seen in North American horse racing, rode both of Ziadie's winners, including the four-year-old gelding Steel the Glory in the featured US$40,000 Lola Belle Stakes over five furlongs.
Going off as the even-money favourite, Steel the Glory showed good early speed under Bridgmohan. He surged clear entering the home stretch, and won by 4 1/4 lengths in 57.94 seconds, chased by the 6-1 bet British Attitude under Velasquez.
Bridgmohan had also won the US$12,000 fourth race over five furlongs with the 7-to-2 bet Not Acclaim for Ziadie. The six-year-old gelding led coming off the final turn and registered a fighting win by half-length in 55.76 seconds, again pushing top jockey Velasquez back into second spot aboard the 3-2 favourite Miners Bid.
Bridgmohan, only six months into his riding career after graduating from high school, got his other victory with the 4-5 favourite Southphilly Barry in the US$10,500 third race over a mile and sixteenth.
Southphilly Barry engaged in a stirring homestretch duel with the second favourite Seattle Ice (3-2) under Cruz and won by a neck in 1:48.89.
Trainer White won the seventh race with the 8-1 bet Stylish Joe, the ninth with Koenigstrasse, a 2-1 favourite, and the 11th with the favourite Americanrevolution (6-5) to end the season with 24 wins, just one behind Ziadie.
