KINGSTON, Jamaica - BIG Jule produced a provocative performance among a promising collection of three-year-old and upwards runners in a non-restricted Overnight Allowance call to win the Reynold “Ren” Gonzalves Memorial Cup over 1,820 metres by an eight-length margin at Caymanas Park on Saturday, July 16, 2022.
The highly thought of bay colt by Tapizar, out of the Blue Grass Cat mare Blues In The Grass, finished fourth in last year’s Derby and was registering his first win for the current season from his second start. Trained by Ian Parsard, Big Jule completed the distance in a time of 1:58.2 seconds built on engaging split fractions of 26.1, 51.3, 1:17.2, and 1:43.3 seconds.
The victory was accomplished by battling his way to the front — at the off, under leading jockey Dane Dawkins — with Awesome Treasure ridden by Reyan Lewis, after which he fought off Uncle Frank (Aaron Chatrie). Before this battle was over, champion jockey Anthony Thomas produced last year’s Guineas winner Miniature Man with a late kick to join the fray. But this effort was subsequently vanquished as Big Jule turned up the ante in the final half-furlong of the race, displaying a growing maturity in his performance to raise his fifth career win. Best Daughter Ever, ridden by Dick Cardenas, never had a realistic chance and finished a distant second. Ras Emanuel (Linton Steadman) was third.
“The stable is very happy and encouraged by the performance, especially coming from a four-month layoff [during] which we took our time to prepare him. He does have a couple of issues and we took our time trying to manage them carefully. He is one of these pacy sort of horses with big strides who likes to go out there and stride. Three different horses came up and challenged him for parity but [were all] unsuccessful.
"First, it was Awesome Treasure who came up and took him on. When Awesome Treasure was finished with that challenge, immediately afterwards, Uncle Frank took him on the inside. No sooner than Uncle Frank was done — he never [even] got a breather as Miniature Man was there for his challenge. What was [impressive] was, he turned back those challenges of three good horses, with the three finishing at the back of the field.
“Big Jule was left alone to kick on in the straight and won by a margin of eight lengths, unchallenged after the opposition was humbled. What is next? We have to wait and see how he comes out of the race then pick our races carefully now that he is up in the Open Allowance class,” Parsard said.
