ANTIGUA SUGAR made it a magnificent seven victories in a row with victory in the £10,000 Coral Coronation Cup Final at Romford on Friday.

 

Completing an unbeaten run through the 575m competition, the Mark Wallis-trained super stayer followed up a similar unbeaten run through the Peter Bussey Memorial Trophy at Crayford and added to victories already landed in last year’s Stadium Bookmakers Juvenile Classic and greyhoundtrader.com Stakes on Derby final night, both at Towcester.

 

The August 20 daughter of Ballymac Bolger and Dolce Vita was hot favourite to land the £10,000 final at Romford having set the fastest times in both heats and semi-finals and duly made no mistake once pacing up behind fast-starting leader Bonjour Bullet (Belinda Green), always having the Oaks runner-up in her sights.

 

Challenging for the lead down the far side second time, Antigua Sugar took up the running approaching the penultimate bend and went on, with Aayzamza Magic, the Coral Essex Vase winner, following his kennelmate through for a famous one-two for champion trainer Mark Wallis in this latest GBGB Category One competition at the Essex venue.

 

Bonjour Bullet crossed the line a very creditable third. The winning distance was a length and half with the winning time for Antigua Sugar a superb 34.80sec (+20).

 

Victory landed trainer Wallis a joint-record fourth Coral Coronation Cup, matching Brian Clemenson’s haul, after previous successes for Reel Trickyone (2014), Roswell Romanov (2017) and Antigua Rum (2020), the latter for the same owners of Antigua Sugar in Nic and Amanda Jeal.

 

Nic Jeal said: “Mark (Wallis) and his team have Sugar running in the form of her life – and that’s testament to his and their skills. She’s not straightforward to train. She doesn’t travel or kennel well and is prone to cramping, but the guys at Imperial Kennels are doing a superb job with her and myself and Amanda couldn’t be happier.

 

“Friday night is the kind of night we are in the sport for. Romford looked after us superbly and we had a lovely evening topped off by another wonderful win by Sugar – which kick-started a good weekend for us with Paddy (Hopes Paddington) also winning his semi-final of the (Arc) Kent Plate at Central Park. We are looking forward to Sunday’s final now.” 

 

Mark Arkell, Romford racing manager, said: “We had two brilliant winners of our major races on Friday in Droopys Good (Coral Golden Sprint) and Antigua Sugar (Coral Coronation Cup) – and well done to the connections of both.

 

“This track has a real habit – a brilliant one – of producing regular winners who the Romford faithful and those watching at home latch on to. I’ve no doubt both Droopys Good and Antigua Sugar have real fan clubs and will have been popular winners here on Friday.

 

“The track was again really busy with a big-race atmosphere which is what it’s all about.”

 

Result: https://www.gbgb.org.uk/meeting/?meetingId=395114&raceId=922683