QUEENS, New York, CMC – Guyanese trainer Naipaul Chatterpaul notched a single winner on Sunday’s nine-race card at Aqueduct when his six-year-old chestnut gelding Centavo produced a solid score in the US$55 000 race four.
Going a mile and eighth for the four-year-olds and upward, Centavo – the longest shot in the field at odds of 14-1 – overcame a fractious start where he almost tossed jockey Gokhan Kocakaya to stalk the leaders.
Favorite Night Effect logged the early fractions with 24.77 seconds for the quarter and 49.41 for the half, with an 8-1 bet Jungfrau running in second and a 3-1 chance Proven Hope and Centavo battling for fourth.
Kocakaya roused Centavo at the five-sixteenth pole, and the gelding made excellent headway into the stretch to grab the lead inside the three-sixteenth.
However, he was under threat from Night Effect and Proven Hope until getting clear in the final stages.
In his only other outing on the nine-race card, Chatterpaul watched as his 6-1 bet Extra Dirty finished third in the $32 000 race, one over six furlongs for the three-year-old maiden fillies.
Chatterpaul has won three times in 15 starts for the season, which got underway on New Year’s Day and wraps up March 30.
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