Call him Prince O'Gold
Jones rides Day Phillips' horse to victory in second leg of Triple Crown
By MIKE ULMER -- Toronto Sun
The future arrived at lovely Fort Erie racetrack yesterday, by a nose.
Jono Jones riding A Bit O'Gold won the Prince of Wales Stakes by stalking Queen's Plate winner Niigon and outlasting him to the wire.
It was the first triple crown event victory for both the 28-year-old Bahamian-born jockey and 36-year-old trainer Catherine Day Phillips.
TRADING PLACES
At the Plate, Niigon held off A Bit O' Gold's steadfast charge by three-quarters of a length.
A Bit O'Gold and Niigon have been trading places all season.
A convincing win in the Plate Trial in which A Bit O'Gold surged past Niigon at the top of the stretch and won by three lengths, had established the Day Phillips' horse as the Plate favourite.
But Jones got a little too far behind on the 1 1/4-mile Woodbine circuit. This time, with a 1 3/16 ride and a stretch about 30 yards longer than Woodbine's, A Bit of Gold delivered the perfect ride.
"I was a little off (at the Plate) where I should have been obviously," Jones said. "And obviously we corrected that. I wanted to keep Niigon in my sights. My horse is a real fighter."
"When Niigon opened up on him at the three-quarters pole, I thought it was game over," Day Phillips said. "But the thing about this horse is that he tries so hard. It was the same at the Plate, he tries and he tries and he tries."
Clearly, that stuck in the mind of bettors. Niigon went off at even money, A Bit O' Gold at 6-5.
Jones is the second-winningest jockey at Woodbine this season but his breakthrough year has been overshadowed by Todd Kabel's absolute dominance. The Plate was supposed to be Jones' big splash and when he couldn't deliver, he dodged reporters.
"I was a bit upset with myself with the way the race worked out," Jones said yesterday in the winner's circle.
Both the winning trainer and jockey have one common bond. Both their fathers are trainers.
Jones' father, Challenor, is a former jockey and now operates a prominent stable in Barbados. Day Phillips' father Jim, who sent out 20-1 long shot His Smoothness to a third-place finish in yesterday's race, has trained two Queen's Plate winners and captured the Sovereign award as Canada's outstanding trainer four times.
Neither Jones nor Day Phillips are big names in their own right, or at least, neither was and in an odd way, the Plate loss sent them careening towards victory in Fort Erie. Jones has ridden all eight of A Bit O'Gold's races and even travelled to Florida to breeze him over the winter.
"We probably talked for forty-five minutes," after the Plate," Day Phillips said. "We knew that he got shuffled back at the Plate and this time we wanted to stay close enough. What happened in the Plate wasn't rider error, it was racing luck."
Day Phillips saw nothing in how Jones handled the Plate loss to indicate she had the wrong guy on her horse.
"There isn't any B.S. between Jono," she said. "I know he got some criticism for not wanting to talk after the Plate but if you look at the best athletes, regardless of the sport, they're probably not good losers.
BIGGEST LOSS
"He was coming off what was probably the biggest loss of his career so I think it's natural that it would take some time to walk it off."
Neither Niigon's trainer, Eric Coatrieux, nor Day Phillips committed to the Breeders' Stakes on the turf at Woodbine on Aug. 8. Expect to see both there.
A Bit O'Gold has never run a mile and a half and hasn't considered grass anything but food.
"He has a low, sort of flat stride and I think that should suit the turf," Day Phillips said. "Distance-wise, he can conserve himself earlier or when asked. That should help him too."
