Sunday’s Labour Day Trophy, won by American NAUTICAL STAR, re-emphasised the importance to the local breeding industry for the urgent installation of a top-level race confined to native-breds, bearing a purse second only to the US$300,000 Mouttet Mile.

With Hajal’s Thoroughbred’s Instagram notifications constantly touting horses “headed for Jamaica” from its family-run-United-States-Department-of-Agriculture-approved pre-export quarantine facility in Florida, soon, only an exceptional local-bred will be able to win an overnight-allowance race.

Simply put, outside of futurity races such as the Guineas, derby, St Leger, Oaks, and Winston Griffiths Classic, dog will soon nyam three-year-old local-breds’ supper, confining them and their older peers to years of misery for owners, unable to supplement their keep through no fault of their own but instead, a lack of representation by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association of Jamaica (TOBA).