Apprentice jockey Micah Husbands guided The Dove Rules ($15.60) to victory in Friday’s Race 8 feature at Gulfstream Park, notching his first win in the U.S.
A winner of 11 races in Canada, the 21-year-old Barbados native is the nephew of eight-time Sovereign Award-winning jockey Patrick Husbands, his mother Selene’s brother.
“It’s a thrill, a dream come true. I grew up watching races here, watching Joel Rosario, Mike Smith, Johnny Velazquez,” said Husbands, who closed from well off the pace to prevail over favored American of Course aboard the Saffie Joseph Jr.-trained The Dove Rules. Joseph, a Barbados native, also provided Husbands with his first U.S. mount, Clay Soldier, who finished third in the previous race.
The seven-pound apprentice, whose late father Fazal Razack rode in Trinidad, ventured to Canada when he was 15 and was eventually adopted by his uncle Patrick to hasten the process of becoming a Canadian citizen. He rode in only 22 races between July 3, 2022 and July 28, 2022, winning aboard his first and final mounts, before his student visa expired and he was not allowed on the grounds of Woodbine until the citizenship process was completed.
Husbands, who galloped horses on trainer Kevin Attard’s farm during that period, returned to race-riding at Woodbine this August following a two-year hiatus. He rode seven winners from 47 mounts between Woodbine and Fort Erie.
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