ETOBICOKE, Ontario, CMC – Ace Barbadian reinsman Patrick Husbands crossed the 50-win mark for the season at the Woodbine race track in Canada with a double on the eight-race card on Friday.
The 50-year-old, seven-time champion at Canada’s main racing facility now has 51 wins for the season, which opened on April 22 and ends on December 17, and he is now sixth in the jockeys’ standings, headed by Kazushi Kimura of Japan with 118 wins.
Husbands grabbed a 2 1/4-lengths win aboard the odds-on favourite Dolder Grand in the CAN $61 800 optional claiming third race over 1 700 metres on the all-weather track.
He was content to keep Dolder Grand trailing on the outside of a compact bunch down the backstretch and started a four-wide run circling around runners 600m from the finish before he produced the five-year-old, dark bay gelding at the top of the lane and took control with 200m remaining and was going away from rivals to clock one minute, 44.75 seconds.
Husbands returned astride the 9-5 favourite Richiesinthehouse to collect the narrowest of wins in the CAN $54 500 claiming sixth race over 1 300m on the all-weather track.
Though Richiesinthehouse hoped slightly missing the break, Husbands got the nine-year-old, bay gelding into a good position and watched the front-running duo down the backstretch before getting his mount to creep closer around the turn.
Richiesinthehouse posed the main threat in the upper stretch, and Husbands kept his mount to the task while battling for the lead at the sixteenth pole before determinedly holding off a closing rival in a tight finish at the wire for a time of 1 min, 16.01 secs, only 1.57 ticks off the track record.
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