Chally Jones' son Juno Jones above

Saturday 15, May-2004 by TYRONE EVELYN

Former South Caribbean champion jockey and now successful trainer Challenor “Chally” Jones will be honoured by the Barbados Turf Club today in celebration of his 50 years of dedicated service and commitment to the horse-racing industry.

Five of the seven races on today’s programme have been named after horses with which Chally has had a successful association either as a jockey, trainer or breeder.

Horses such as Paddy Bird, bred and trained by Chally to win the Barbados Derby; Incitatus, bred and trained by him to win both the Derby and the Gold Cup; Jafetica which he also bred and raced from F class toB class in just one year; former champion imported Kingly Street, on which he had a long and successful association as a jockey; and Pepperpot and Gold Lining, the former one of the better creoles bred by the late Sir John Chandler and the latter the horse on which he rode his first winner.

The day’s feature race, The Challenor “Chally” Jones M.B.E. Trophy Handicap for the top class horses is named after him; while the final race, The Richard Atkinson Trophy Condition, is named after his late close friend and associate for whom he rode and later trained many winners.

During his long and distinguished career both as a jockey and trainer, Chally has established numerous records here and in Trinidad, many of which would hardly be broken.

One such record is his riding the winner of the prestigious Derby a whopping 17 times, 11 times in Barbados and six in Trinidad. And when he became a trainer, he has saddled the Barbados Derby winner on five occasions to date.

His services to horse racing received national recognition when some years back he was awarded the Member of the order of the British Empire (MBE) accolade.

Today’s seven-race card looks a competitive one, with Feet On Flames and Peace Angel expected to fight out the finish overthe 1 570 metres in The Challenor Jones Trophy Handicap, the day’s feature race. Feet On Flames, in with the topweight of 1 33 pounds, will benefit from apprentice John Stevenson’s seven-pound claim. The selection however is the Bill Marshall-trained Peace Angel, to be partnered by Andy Ward today.

Peace Angel, who was unexpectedly withdrawn last race day, is now at the peak of her form and that unplanned break could be to her advantage since Feet On Flames has been putting up a lot of mileage going back to his outstanding run in the Gold Cup.

Lion Country and Storm Hunter can fight it out for the shorter ends of the purse.

Stablemates Highland Waters and Midnight Thomas look the ones to be on in The Kingly Street Trophy going 1 100 metres.

Although the Bill Marshall-trained pair has not been in the best of form of late, their six other opponents don’t come up to scratch so they should fight out the finish. The only exception here is Sugar Daddy, but today’s going might be too hard for him since he goes best with some give underfoot.

Cote D’azur looks home and hosed in the opening race for The Paddy Bird Trophy, while Cordelia has an opportunity to compensate for her poor performance last race day by taking The Incitatu Trophy (Race 3).

Compliments of the Nation News

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