KINGSTON, Jamaica - “Slowly but surely Rusty is taking his time to develop into a useful runner.”
Those were the words of trainer Wayne DaCosta after his two-year-old bay gelding won the Andrew H B Aguilar Memorial Cup, a maiden special weight event for native bred juveniles over one mile (1,600m) on Saturday, November 28 at Caymanas Park.
Ridden by Anthony Thomas, Rusty (Drill – Kenzie’s Charm) won by 2 ¼ lengths in a time of 1:40.0 after leading for the entire distance of the race.
Rusty went to the front ahead of Tequila Blue (Paul Francis) and Nuclear Noon (Robert Halledeen). As the field made their way down the backstretch, Rusty continued to lead with Leo (Dick Cardenas) putting in a challenge at the half-mile (800m) turn.
Turning for home, still under the hand ride, Rusty wasted no time and sprinted home to win comfortably ahead of Katalina (Raddesh Roman) with Nuclear Noon occupying the third slot.
“Rusty is slowly developing. He is taking his time to get his act together. After his first race, we realised that he wanted to go longer but we couldn’t just put him in a longer race on his second outing. First of all, there weren’t any long races after his first race so we were forced to wait.
“He broke on top and basically took the race from the word go and was able to pull away and if you noticed, the last half-furlong he was going away from the field which augurs well for his future.
“So, let’s keep our fingers crossed and see if he progresses along the right way,” DaCosta said.
