CANOVANAS, Puerto Rico - Venezuela
scored its second win in the past three years and its
eighth overall as Gran Abuelo won the 35th running of
the Clasico Internacional Del Caribe here at El
Comandante race track on Sunday.
The Clasico is the annual Caribbean
nations thoroughbred championship for 3-year-olds at a
mile-and-an-eighth. This year's purse was the richest in
Latin America, $300,000 with $174,000 to winning owner
Vittorio Lungavitta of Los Grandes Stud.
Gran Abuelo, trained by Gustavo
Delgado and ridden by Alberto Castillo, went off as the
close second choice to the local star, Puerto Rico's
triple crown winning filly Mediavilla R. The filly would
not finish the race after tearing a tendon in her right
front leg that will mean her retirement from racing. She
had come into the race with 19 wins in 22 starts and has
won her last five starts by a combined 77 lengths.
The margin of victory for the son of
Le Voyager out of the Fappiano mare Cloak was three
lengths with Panama's Figo second and the other
Venezuelan starter, Soul Provider finishing third almost
eight lengths behind. The winning time for the nine
furlongs on a wet-fast track was 1:52.27. Gran Abuelo
paid $4.90 and $2.80 with a total handle of over $1.3
million bet by the crowd of some 8,000.
To be eligible to run in the Clasico
a thoroughbred must be bred in one of the eight
confederation member nations that touch the Caribbean
Sea -- Colombia;The Dominican Republic; Ecuador,
Guatemala, Panama, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago or
Venezuela.
Sunday capped a rich weekend of
racing here with purses totaling almost $600,000 for
four Grade I races. Saturday the $100,000 Copa
Confraternidad for older horses was won by another
Venezuelan star, My Own Business. The 5-year-old was the
2000 winner of the Clasico del Caribe and became just
the second horse to win the Clasico and Confraternidad
Cup joining Puerto Rico's Verset's Jet (1993 &
1994).
Also on Saturday was the inaugural
running of the Grade I $77,500 Copa Velocidad for
sophomore sprinters at six-furlongs won by Panama's
Batistuta trained by Hall of Famer Alberto Paz
"Droopy" Rodriguez for the Las Perlas Stud.
The first race exclusively for 3-year-old fillies in the
series, the Grade I $70,000 Copa Dama Del Caribe on
Saturday went to another Panamanian runner - Lala G.
owned by stud El Tronio and trained by Eric Navarro.
Here is the official order of finish
of Sunday's Grade I Clasico Internacional Del Caribe :
1-Gran Abuelo (Venezuela) ; 2- Figo (Panama); 3- Soul
Provider (Venezuela); 4- Estaca De Guayacan (Colombia);
5- Contrapunto (Puerto Rico); 6- Libertador (Puerto
Rico); 7- El Siboney (Puerto Rico); 8- Dancing Queen
(Panama); 9 - Comandante Eddy B. (Dominican Republic).
Mediavilla RE. (Puerto Rico) did not finish.
