City Flight lands St Catherine Cup
City Flight continues to demonstrate she is something special in the making when with the minimum of effort, she outran Open Allowance three-year-olds and upward to win the $786,500 St Catherine Cup by 2 3/4 lengths at Caymanas Park yesterday.
Ridden by for four-time champion Omar Walker for trainer Gary Subratie, the 3-5 favourite broke smoothly with the lead from the off and was never headed, as she dictated terms in a measured run to maintain her unbeaten run with her fifth-consecutive win from as many starts.
The performance of City Flight was one that was pleasing to trainer Subratie: “I’m expecting great things from this filly and it was a good performance. The time of 1:06 minutes had been expected. I did not want her to go much faster than that. The time was good enough for this class. Her times will get better. For the moment, we are waiting for her to get into Grade One before we start to open up the valve.”
And Subratie certainly believes that the filly can make her presence felt in the top grade. “Definitely, she does have Grade One status. We, however, have one more Open Allowance race before we start to programme her for Grade One races, and then we’ll see what she can do,” Subratie added.
Fellow American-bred Rio Cobre, ridden by Dane Nelson, who finished second also broke sharply, but the filly was up and away and as much that he tried with the big weight, he was never going to get on terms, and therefore had to settle for the runner-up slot.
El Poderoso, the 9-5 second favourite ridden by Winston Griffiths, finished third, another two lengths back, with a the 9-1 chance Smokin Man, ridden by Prince Holder, completing the frame in the field of seven.
Owned by Michros, City Flight is a dark bay/brown filly by City Place out of Flight of Glory (Formal Dinner) bred by Ekstrum, Bruce K in the USA and earned $429,400 as the winner’s share for a bankroll of $2,238,500 lifetime.
Walker was the leading rider on the nine-race card with three winners — Shining Gold for trainer Gary Griffiths in the fourth race over 1,200 metres, Ghost Rapper for trainer Ian Parsard in the fifth race over 1,300 metres, and City Flight, while Subratie had a double, adding Perfect Day in the third race under Ameth Robles.
