Racing to resume with consecutive Saturday-Sunday meets

LIVE horse racing will resume at Caymanas Park on Saturday, November 15, the first weekend of consecutive Saturday-Sunday meets, featuring a rescheduled Jamaica Cup Day, which was originally slated to be run this Saturday, November 8.

Solomon Sharpe, chairman, Supreme Ventures Racing and Entertainment Limited (SVREL), outlined November's schedule of live racing on Saturday, stating that only one race meet would be lost after the passage of Hurricane Melissa.

"November originally had six meets," Sharpe pointed out. "We lost the first, November 1, which is understandable after the passage of Hurricane Melissa. However, Jamaica Cup Day, which should have been on Saturday, November 8, will be moved to Sunday, the November 16," he explained.

"Therefore, the race meets for November will be the 15th, 16th, 22nd, 23rd and 29th. We are returning with a bang, back-to-back weekends, including two Mouttet Mile win-and-you're-in races on a Sunday, the Jamaica Cup and Port Royal Sprint," Sharpe added.

After November's racing closes on Saturday, the 29th, the new month kicks off on Saturday, December 6, with the US$300,000 Mouttet Mile, possibly followed by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA) of Jamaica annual Mixed Sale on Sunday, December 7.

TOBA's directors are reportedly mulling rescheduling the sale, originally set for November 23, which SVREL has since announced as a raceday, to one of two blank Sundays, November 30 or December 7.

At least two thoroughbred breeding farms suffered catastrophic damage during the passage of Hurricane Melissa. Trelawny's Orange Valley Estates Limited, many-time champion breeder, operated by TOBA director Alec Henderson and wife Jacqui, was battered by the Category 5 hurricane.

YS Farms in St Elizabeth, run by Dawn Browne, also bore the brunt of the most powerful hurricane to make landfall in Jamaica, leaving a trail of destruction in the western half of the island.

Though the Caymanas Park racetrack, located on the south coast of St Catherine in Portmore, suffered some damage, its many off-track betting (OTBs) hubs in central and western Jamaica were hard hit by the hurricane, suffering significant infrastructure loss of equipment to capture the broadcast of live racing.

Approximately 70 per cent of Caymanas Park's sales are off-site, bets placed at OTBs scattered across the island, more than 40 per cent of which sustained damage throughout last Tuesday's passage of Category 5 Hurricane Melissa.