Mon | Dec 30, 2024

Roman’s dream now reality

Jockey nips Foster by one winner to claim first championship in dramatic title race

Published:Sunday | December 29, 2024 | 12:09 AMAinsley Walters - Sunday Gleaner Writer
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Tevin Foster (left) douses rival Raddesh Roman, the 2024 champion jockey, after the final race at Caymanas Park yesterday at Caymanas Park. Roman rode 133 winners to Foster’s 132 wins in one of the most fiercely contested jockey championship races in Cay
Anthony Minott
Tevin Foster (left) douses rival Raddesh Roman, the 2024 champion jockey, after the final race at Caymanas Park yesterday at Caymanas Park. Roman rode 133 winners to Foster’s 132 wins in one of the most fiercely contested jockey championship races in Caymanas Park history.
Raddesh Roman, the 2024 champion jockey, is hoisted after he was declared the winner of an exciting and drama-filled duel with Tevin Foster for the title, at Caymanas Park yesterday.
Anthony Minott
Raddesh Roman, the 2024 champion jockey, is hoisted after he was declared the winner of an exciting and drama-filled duel with Tevin Foster for the title, at Caymanas Park yesterday.
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TEVIN Foster fought to the very end, losing the last race of the year by a half-length aboard MEDAL AWARD in his bid to force a tie with Raddesh Roman for the 2024 jockeys’ title after pulling level with a hat-trick of wins earlier in the afternoon.

Roman, who started the nine-race card with a 132-129 advantage, eventually beat Foster 133-132 in their bid for the riders’ crown, but not without high drama, starting at the second event.

Aiming for 133 aboard 9-5 chance UNRULY DUDE in the opening event, Roman was still sitting pretty after even-money favourite WILSON closed in mid-track with Javaniel Patterson to deny him by a widening four and a half lengths.

Foster’s assault on races two through four, notching a hat-trick aboard two-year-old HONOUR PRINCE, SUPREMAS in the Vestia Trophy and three-year-old maiden, SHELLY THE ROCKET, sent his fans into a frenzy, and jitters among Roman’s supporters, with the battle locked on 132 apiece with five races to run.

Roman won the following event astride OIL MACHINE, chasing Foster’s LUCY IN THE SKY off the lead at a mile, inching to 133, the victory that would eventually hand him his first title but not without enduring further anxious moments.

Expected to increase his lead to 134 aboard RIDEALLDAY, Philip Feanny’s 1-5 favourite to win the six-furlong BGLC-TOBA Millionaires Series Dye Job Sprint, Roman had the recent impressive winner disputing the lead with fellow importee UNRULY MO from the off.

However, UNSPUN, the only winner of two races in the event, stalked his American counterparts from third with Christopher Mamdeen stoking him along to keep pace with the speedsters. Attacking three-wide at the top of the lane, Mamdeen rallied UNSPUN to wear down RIDEALLDAY, winning by a short head despite Roman’s drifting antics inside the final furlong.

Thrown a lifeline by RIDEALLDAY’s loss, Foster set about keeping Roman on the seat of his pants in the final two races of the year, finishing second aboard STANISLAUS in the eighth, well beaten by 6-1 shot SABINA, before the finale that brought down the house.

Attacking Roman’s EMPRESSINTHEBREEZE relentlessly at five furlongs straight, Foster’s MEDAL AWARD was outbattled close home by CLOWNING AROUND with claiming jockey Emelio McLean, losing by a half-length to force a tie.

Lifted to the winners’ enclosure by his army of fans after weighing in, Roman acknowledged his rival’s tremendous last-day rally.

“I wish to thank the owners, trainers, and my agent, who made this possible. I cannot explain the feeling,” he said.

“It was my dream before I started riding, and it’s now a reality. Mr Foster really put up a good fight,” Roman added.

The new season of racing starts on Wednesday with Roman as the newly minted champion, the fourth year in a row that a new champion will reign at Caymanas Park.

ainsley.walters@gleanerjm.com