Bud White is now the horse to beat and its owner is willing to challenge anyone. Photo: VINO

It is the hope of many that Slevin, seen here winning the first leg of the Triple Crown in emphatic fashion, would be entered the final leg on March 18. Photo: VINO

The final leg of the Triple Crown is slated for March 18 at the Clinton E. Phipps Track in St. Thomas.

Speaking on the St. Thomas radio programme ‘The game’on Friday February 24, 2012, Mr. Smith noted that while a spot in the final leg was not guaranteed for Bud White as there are other horses with points that can exercise their right to enter, he was being optimistic that the horse would get a spot. “There are horses in front of us and there are also rules to follow so we will see how it goes.”

Responding to claims that two horse owners in Tortola had brought in new horses that may be entered in the final leg of the Triple Crown, Mr. Smith said he had no problem if that was the case. “I am just a sportsman, whoever bring in horses can come down and if you get into the third leg of the Triple Crown we will race you. We racing anybody, anybody bring any horse we ready to run. If you from Tortola and if after this race and you ready for carnival and after carnival we come Tortola and all and run, we have no problem with that. The competition does good for everybody so if you have a new horse we accept you and after that we will go to Tortola as you know we take our horses to Tortola,” Mr. Smith said.

A caller to the programme had claimed that a Tortola horse owner had stopped him on the road to inform him that he had brought in a new horse and that Bud White’s days were already numbered.

It was noted, however, that even if such rumours were true, a matchup with Bud White and the new horses would not likely materialise for the Triple Crown final leg as there were other horses with points from Tortola that would firstly have to step aside. Horses eligible to run from Tortola include East End Tap, Good Prospecting, Broken Home, Really Uptown and Lake Texoma.

And even if Bud White gets to enter in the final leg, the much anticipated rematch between him and Slevin would also not be a reality since the latter’s owner James Bates has since indicated that he would not be entering Slevin in the race since the horse needs to be rested.

According to one of the callers, however, he and others were trying to convince Mr. Bates to reconsider and have Slevin entered in the final leg.

Meanwhile, President of the St. Thomas Horse racing Association Winston Benjamin, who was one of the co-hosts of the radio programme, said he was happy to hear that new horses had arrived on Tortola as it was good for competition. He also expressed his disappointment that some persons were trying to bring controversy to the Triple Crown.

“As Virgin Islanders we could be very destructive and a lot of people don’t realise it. Sometimes we could have very good things, good people and we just demolish them and demolish what we create that was good for us....I have a lot of respect for Mr. Bates. When he first bought Real Madrid we had good times when that started something that we didn’t expect could happen. He went and bought two other horses that he soon enough brought to St. Thomas and we want that to continue. We don’t want relationships to get sour.”