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Top owner Nigel Austin calls it a day
Doubles for Jayaratne stable and jockey's Kareem and Kumar
By M. Shamil Amit
The last horse racing meet of the Nuwara Eliya festival season ended in double wins for the Jayaratne stables and jockeys Mohamed Kareem and Ashok Kumar. The Nuwara Eliya festival meet which began on April 3 followed by the main event which was the Governors Cup held on April 14 and the Ideal Cup meet on April 17 came to a conclusion with the eight event meet held on April 22.

The festival meet was dominated by Indian jockey Mohamed Kareem who ended with six wins in the festival meet that earned him the best jockey's award while trainer Jayantha Wijesinghe with 13 wins in the four day festival meet took the best trainers award.

The last day belonged to Indian jockey Mohamed Kareem who took the fourth event of day which was the five furlong Mayors Cup with Eulexite owned by Anura Delgoda and followed by winning the sixth event on Aerobee owned by Mrs. Chamari Jayaratne to win the Sunquick Cup.

Local jockey Ashok Kumar who rode Hi Gorgeous to win the Governors Cup on April 14 put in another fine riding performance to steer the same horse to take the 7 furlong Nescafe Cup sponsored by Nestle Lanka Ltd, the horse taking the lead from the start kept on increasing the lead to win the race with ease.

Kumar secured the double when he cantered an uneasy Kiss Me Quick to win the Scan Jumbo Peanut Trophy. The horse was the last to go into the starting stalls but jockey Kumar had him under control.

The days proceedings got underway with the Capri Cup event which was comfortably won by Kishor Kumar ridden Cadmium owned by Mrs. Chamari Jayaratne. Sonali owned by Anurath Abeyratne and ridden by Indian jockey R.B. Shinde who won the Paris Cup on Governors Cup day took the second event with a start to finish win to take the Sumathi Cup on offer.

The third event of the day went to Serendib Racing Syndicate owned Don Alejandro who pipped Korean Dancer at the post to take the Sporting Times Cup and the last event of the day fought out for the Nescafe Classic Trophy was won by Be My Friend owned by Ruwan Jayasekera who nosed in at the last furlong to pip early leader Early Light by a head.

Ajantha de Zoysa who was to field six horses for the last day meeting pulled out all the horses due to personal reasons. The ending of the festival meet also saw one of the top most owners of horses Nigel Austin bidding goodbye to the turf. Austin speaking over the phone to the Sunday Times confirmed this, saying I have been involved with horse racing for the last ten years and I have enjoyed every bit of it.

Within this period he has had the privilege of having three winners in the Governors Cup event and won many more top horse racing events. The horse racing circles is definitely going to miss one of the top gentlemen in the horse racing fraternity who has done everything possible to keep horse racing the king of sports as they call it, alive in Sri Lanka. .

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