Following a scintillating first-leg victory, Real Gold shoots for the second jewel in the Philippine Racing Commission’s 2019 Triple Crown series at the Saddle and Clubs Leisure Park in Naic, Cavite on Sunday.
Real Gold won the initial battle of the country’s best three-year-olds, humbling the eight-horse 1st-leg field that included undefeated and overwhelming favorite Obra Maestra at the San Lazaro Leisure Park in Carmona, Cavite last month.
The C&H Enterprise-owned Real Gold wants a fitting follow-up to that masterful win, but six of the country’s top horses stand in its way, namely Best Regards (jockey CP Henson, owner Peter Aguila), Boss Emong (Dan Camanero, Edward Vincent Diokno), Jayz (JA Guce, SC Stockfarm), Phenomenal (JB Guce, Enrique Javier), Shanghai Noon (OP Cortez, Emmanuel Santos) and Toy For The Big Boy (JB Cordova, Alfredo Santos).
The seven-horse field will also be gunning for the whopping top purse of P1.8 million from the total purse of R3 million put up by the Philracom for the race, to be ran in 1,800 meters.
Second-placer of the race pockets P675,000, with the third and fourth placers getting P375,000 and P150,000, respectively. A P100,000 prize is allotted for the breeder of winning horse.
“Real Gold set the bar high in the first leg,” said Philracom Chairman Andrew Sanchez. “Its performance will keep the rest on their toes.”
The last horse to win all three legs of the Triple Crown was Sepfourteen of SC Stockfarm in 2017. Prior to Sepfourteen’s Triple Crown achievement two years ago, the last time one horse won it all in one year was in 2014 when Emmanuel Santos’s colt Kid Molave (Into Mischief x Unsaid) scored the rare 3-peat.
