3 minute read

Panamanian jockey Elvis Trujillo was the star of Sunday’s racing at Taipa, kicking home a winning treble to firmly establish himself in the Macau jockey ranks for next season.

Trujillo commenced his apprenticeship in his home country of Panama. After a flying start to his career he moved to Mexico for a short while before settling in the US where most of his riding career has been spent.

Trujillo’s resume reads well with over 2200 race winners, including 50 Graded races. His biggest win to date was in the 2007 Breeder’s Cup Fillies and Mares on Maryfield.

Trujillo, who only arrived in Macau six weeks ago, started his winning run on Sunday with a nice ride on the KH Leong trained Ho Sai Lei to win the25 to 45 rated event over 1500 metres on the turf.

Ho Sai Lei parked off leader before pouncing in the straight. Under hard riding he had enough in hand to stave off the late runs of second placed Lucky Station (Martin Wepner), and Haayil Shadow (Luis Corrales).

The Stephen Chow prepared Fontainebleau made three straight wins when he led throughout under Trujillo to win the 30 to 55 rated event over 1200 metres (turf).

Fontainebleau is a big strong looking son of Ekraar that is going to develop into a nice sprinting type and appears to be improving with every run.

New Zealand import Snowball rounded out Trujillo’s day when he powered home from well back in the run to win the Class 4 Handicap over 1050 metres on the sand.

Snowball was completely outsped in the early stages and was still spotting the leaders seven lengths coming to the corner.

Once in the straight the chestnut son of Sebring rocketed home in the centre of the track to win easily from Tyson (Peter Ho), with Mackinac Island (Andrew Calder) third.

Prepared by Alan Tam, Snowball commenced his career with Ken and Bev Kelso at Matamata in New Zealand.

He won a maiden at Waikato in good fashion before tackling Group and Listed races where he was out of his depth. Whilst not a big horse the gelding has matured into a nice four year old that will more than pay his way in the enclave.

Alan Tam took training honors for the afternoon also winning the Class 3 over 1500 metres (turf) with Peace Get Joy who saluted per medium of a lovely ride by Irish jockey Wayne Smith.

Peace Get Joy flew the gates under Smith and led to the first corner before handing up the lead to Wonder Holy.

The son of Statue Of Liberty ended up with the run of the race third the inside before popping away from the rails to challenge at the 250 mark.

The well supported Tuhao Power (Ryan Curatolo) came to win the race and actually headed Peace Get Joy, however under strong riding from Smith Peace Get Joy really dug in late to come back and win by a neck on the line.

Peace Get Joy has an interesting background. The gelding commenced racing as Claro El Banco when trained by Mornington trainer Jason Petch and was a winner of the unique Victorian Magic Million Clockwise Classic worth $A200,000.

The event held at Ballarat is the only race run clockwise in Victoria.

After a few more runs in Victoria without success, the gelding was transferred to Gosford trainer Grant Allard and ended up running out his final race at Port Macquarie in NSW.

Sunday’s win was his first attempt over 1500 metres.