Walcott intensifies title bid with double

With the Century Mile racing season in its final month, reigning champion jockey, Barbadian Rico Walcott, fortified his case to retain the title with a double win in Alberta.

Walcott now leads the jockeys’ standings with 56 wins – four more than Enrique Alonzo Gonzalez, his nearest and biggest rival for the title – at the main racetrack in western Canada.

Walcott rode the 2-1 favourite This Time Lucky to a 2 1/2-length victory in the CAN $8,120 fourth race over 1,300 metres on the dirt, prevail over Harry’s Hammer, under compatriot Antonio Whitehall on Friday.

This Time Lucky, a four-year-old, dark bay gelding, set the pace from just off the rail, drove clear entering the stretch and was kept to task to reach the wire in a time of one minute, 17.10 seconds.

Walcott then scored with the 6-5 favourite Go Mama in the CAN $6,970 sixth race again over 1,300 metres on the dirt, where he again prevailed over Whitehall aboard Lil Ol Flatter.

Walcott put Go Mama to track the leaders and closed on them leaving the backstretch before swinging the five-year-old, chestnut mare out at the quarter pole and driving clar in the stretch to finish in 1 min, 17.76 secs.