Guyana’s day leaves T&T behind

On Au­gust 23, the Ris­ing Sun Turf Club staged its 18th Guyana Cup race day, fea­tur­ing 14 races, 100 hors­es, and over TT$2 mil­lion in prize mon­ey.

​Many of this coun­try’s lead­ing rid­ers made the trip across to Guyana to com­pete along­side jock­eys from Guyana, Venezuela and Brazil. The horse pop­u­la­tion com­prised im­ports from Trinidad and To­ba­go, Venezuela, Brazil, and the USA, along­side hors­es bred in Guyana.

​In the 1950s and 1960s, Guyana had a rich horse-rac­ing tra­di­tion. Fol­low­ing the po­lit­i­cal up­heavals of that era, the in­dus­try was thrown in­to tur­moil. The George­town Turf Club was vir­tu­al­ly shut down and its once-fa­mous race­track par­tial­ly con­vert­ed in­to a stretch of road, which to­day still harkens back to its his­to­ry as Home­stretch Av­enue.